Taylor set to have Croke Park farewell confirmed
Katie Taylor’s long-awaited farewell fight at Croke Park is set to be confirmed on Friday.
On Wednesday, Taylor’s promoter Matchroom confirmed a press conference for Croke Park at 14:00 BST on Friday.
While an opponent is not yet known, the World Boxing Council (WBC) earlier this week said Taylor and unbeaten French fighter Flora Pili will fight for the vacant WBC light-welterweight title.
Taylor, 39, has has not boxed since completing a clean sweep of the trilogy against Amanda Serrano in New York’s Madison Square Garden last July, which saw her retain her undisputed light-welterweight title.
After taking some time out from the sport, the two-weight world undisputed champion indicated she would return for a farewell fight with Dublin’s 82,300-capacity Croke Park topping her wishlist.
It has been a long-held dream for Taylor to fight at the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA)’s headquarters with the idea first floated following her first victory over Serrano in April 2022.
However, after a win over Karen Carabajal in London, her homecoming would take place at Dublin’s 3 Arena with Croke Park’s stadium chief executive Peter McKenna saying Taylor’s promoter Matchroom would not cover security costs.
Matchroom chairman Eddie Hearn claimed “the cost of hire, the cost of everything involved with the event is three times nearly more than staging it at Wembley Stadium”.
Taylor suffered her sole career loss against Chantelle Cameron in that first professional fight on Irish soil in May 2023 before avenging the defeat at the same venue later that year.
It appeared the Croke Park dream would not come to fruition, but after some time off following her victory in New York last summer, Taylor intimated she would come back for one last dance.
“The one fight I really, really want is at Croke Park,” she told Matchroom Boxing’s Flash Knockdown Podcast.
“That would top off my career so well. There’s been so much talk over the past few years but I’m still clinging onto the hope that one day I can fight there. It would be the icing on the cake for me.”
The door to a first boxing event at Croke Park since Muhammad Ali’s victory over Al ‘Blue’ Lewis in July 1972 appeared to swing open in April when McKenna suggested Taylor could fight on a card alongside Tyson Fury, a suggestion shot down by Hearn, who insisted “if there is a fight at Croke Park, it should be Katie Taylor and Katie Taylor only”.
The date for the fight will be confirmed in a news conference at Croke Park on Friday, with Hearn previously proposing 5 September.