KATIE CAN WIN OVER DOUBTERS
IT WAS a quarter to one, when a relaxed Katie Taylor strolled onto the stage of the Motorpoint Arena, her manager Brian Peters and coach Ross Enamait by her side. She was in good form, smiling easily and cracking jokes, a fighter ready to climb to the top of the world
From the back of the crowd, there was the odd cry of ‘Katie’ that was just about heard over the deafening trance music that was being piped in as the Arena began to fill up in anticipation of the weigh-in. Less than an hour later, a shadow fell on her first world pro title bout.
Anahi Sanchez didn’t look like a fighter worried about not making the weight as she confidently clambered onto the scales. And the Argentinian even looked a little shell-shocked when the red digital figures confirmed the bad news.
Just over two hours later, she failed a second attempt at getting under 9st 9lb and it took some hasty negotiations from both teams to ensure that Taylor can still fight for the WBA belt that Sanchez has vacated. For the Argentinian former champion, she faces a fine from the WBA.
It was a fairly dramatic turn on what was supposed to be a routine afternoon in the Welsh capital. In the coming weeks, the Motorpoint Arena will host the WWE, TLC, Blondie and John Bishop.
A different sort of entertainment to what the thousands of punters who spilled through the door yesterday to hear Dillian Whyte promise ‘pain’ on his Finnish opponent in this evening’s WBC silver heavyweight title bout and Anthony Joshua to win a few more fans with his easy charm.
Ken Ruffley, from Moycullen, queued outside the Motorpoint Arena for a couple of hours with his son, John. To see Taylor. And also Joshua. There was a decent Irish presence, although it was the heavyweight champion who stole the show.
It is 10 years since Joe Calzaghe stood on top of the world and starred in big boxing nights in this city. This evening’s card is an attempt to recapture that and with the roof closed on the Principality Stadium, it even allows Eddie Hearn to claim that it will be the largest indoor crowd for a boxing card in the UK.
The Principality Stadium dominates this compact city. It is as if every street leads to it (imagine if they built a huge sports stadium on Stephen’s Green or Eyre Square). That is how central it is.
And it means when something happens here, it is hard to escape it.
Everyone knows that Joshua has come to town, including your correspondent’s taxi driver, who professed no love of boxing and was more concerned with Millwall visiting the Cardiff City Stadium this afternoon as Neil Warnock continues to mastermind an unlikely promotion bid for the Bluebirds.
‘Is she good?’ he wondered when I told him about Taylor’s world title fight. Resisting the temptation to reel off all her major accomplishments, I just nodded.
‘I don’t know if I could get into that, watching women fight,’ he added, before explaining that he managed to snare a ticket at the last minute when Frank Bruno met Lennox Lewis in Cardiff Arms Park 24 years ago, through his brother, a boxing fan.
‘The brother is well into his boxing. He will be there. But I don’t buy into Joshua, sure he barely beat a 50year-old man.’
Joshua is unlikely to be as troubled by Carlos Takam, as he was by Wladimir Klitschko. But this is not the sort of bout to ensure that bigtime boxing has returned to this part of the world, in the same way it was a decade ago when Calzaghe was at his brilliant best.
Indeed — despite her opponent’s failure to make the weight — there is a real opportunity here for Katie Taylor to win a few more fans, and change a few more minds about women’s boxing.
As Eddie Hearn suggests, Taylor should win a few more fans in Cardiff tonight.
‘When we put a card together with Anthony, the first thing he always says is “will Katie be on the bill?” He wants to see her fight, and a lot of other people do, too.’
As they spill onto Cardiff’s tight warren of streets near midnight tonight, Taylor may have been the fighter who has stole the show.