MILLIONAIRE CHAMP NOT IN IT FOR MONEY
Taylor has ambitions other than boosting her bank balance
‘SHE IS NOT OBSESSED WITH MONEY LIKE SOME FIGHTERS’
ON October 4 last year, a text message from an unfamiliar number appeared on Eddie Hearn’s phone. It read: ‘Hi Eddie, hope you are well, I hope you don’t mind me reaching out to you like this, out of the blue. I have been seriously considering turning pro for the last few months. I think I could do for women’s pro boxing what I did for the amateur sport, bring it into focus and generate a serious interest. I have a global interest and a great fanbase. Of course, the pro game is impossible without a great promoter so I am wondering if you would be interested in talking more about this. Much appreciated, Katie Taylor.’
Hearn’s interest was piqued. He had seen Taylor fight numerous times. And was excited by her style. He also knew of her following in Ireland. He replied almost immediately, setting in train a process that saw Taylor, and her manager Brian Peters, sit in his Essex office two weeks later. The journey had begun.
Apparently, Hearn was so inspired by the first afternoon he spent in Taylor’s company that he got up for a jog the next morning, his first in three months. And through his six-year-old daughter’s eyes, he saw that his new fighter had an appeal that stretched beyond the usual confines of the boxing world.
He showed his daughter Isabella some clips of Taylor in the ring, she began shadow-boxing around the house. It opened his eyes to his new client’s potential. ‘My daughter was having breakfast and she came running up the stairs, saying, “Dad, look Katie Taylor is on the cornflakes.” Even then, I knew we had something here.’
That Taylor’s face adorned cereal boxes in the UK, before stepping into a professional ring, illustrated the kind of earning power she possessed. Since captivating the nation with her emotional Olympic success in London’s Excel Arena, Taylor was a rarity in Irish boxing in that she was a magnet for commercial partners.
While her stablemates in the IABA High Performance programme discovered that medals didn’t necessarily transfer into marketability, Ireland’s Golden Girl had a long list of companies lining up to be associated with her.
And it was firms that ordinarily had little to do with the sweet science – the likes of KPMG, Kellogg’s and Toyota. They were drawn to Taylor’s grace, humility and likeability.
Accounts filed for KT Sports Ltd – Taylor’s holding company for which she and her mother, Bridget are directors – in May of this year, saw profits for the previous 12 months of €1.4m, a rise of €200,000 from the previous year. Even before joining forces with Hearn, Taylor was well-off.
So, perhaps this foray into the professional ranks had more to do with breaking down barriers than lucre. ‘She is not money-obsessed,’ Hearn insists. ‘She knows her value but she’s not like some of these fighters who are painful to deal with. And deluded.’ Taylor’s team have kept tight-lipped about how much she earned for winning the WBA lightweight title in Cardiff last week, but it is reckoned to be somewhere in the region of €75,000. Considering that herself and Anahi Sanchez conjured up a bout that stole the show – and Taylor’s perfectlyexecuted left hook to the Argentine’s body in the second round was the best shot on the entire card – it still doesn’t amount to a whole lot when compared to Anthony Joshua’s purse of €10m. However, Taylor has opened doors with the show she put on. Last Saturday night was the break-through bout, when she silenced the remaining doubters. Roughly 55,000 spectators were in the Principality Stadium when the bell rang for her bout. And it convinced Hearn and Sky Sports that Taylor can now headline her own show, as she will do in London on December 16 with her first defence of her world crown. Hearn (right) is careful when asked to consider how much Taylor can earn in the coming years, conscious of creating any million-dollar baby headlines. But he believes that her earning potential can skyrocket if she does sell out the 3 Arena next April for the expected unification bout against WBC champion Delfine Persoon.
‘A lot will depend on the reaction when we come to Dublin,’ Hearn says. ‘It is a great story, Katie Taylor’s, and the Irish people love it. But will they come out? If they do, and she sells 9,000 seats, it is not a million-euro purse but it is on the way. Then you have to look at going to the next level. You have to start asking can there be a stadium show with Katie top of the bill. She will need others with her.’
Hearn never rules out any possibility and smiled when Croke Park was sug- gested last Tuesday. If the Katie Taylor story does go to GAA headquarters, it will have to be against an opponent out of the ordinary. ‘That would be the ultimate,’ Hearn says. ‘But I think you need a bit of a freak fight for that, and that is where we are talking about the likes of Holly Holm. Katie for unification, that is never going to be a pay-perview fight, but if you get a freak fight, like a Holly Holm or a Ronda Rousey, then maybe.’
Last Tuesday afternoon, 16 years to the day when Taylor met Alanna Murphy in the first sanctioned women’s boxing bout in Ireland at the National Stadium, she sat in Dublin’s city centre as lightweight champion of the world.
Next month, 14 months after texting Eddie Hearn on spec to see if there was interest in Taylor as a pro, she will become the first female fighter to headline a live television show on Sky Sports.
Things are moving fast. Even after all these years, Taylor is still breaking down every barrier in her way.
Facing Holly Holm in Croke Park in something that can be dressed up as the female fight of the century. That might seem fanciful but when it comes to Katie Taylor, it would be foolish to rule anything out.