Eighty thousand people, and then it was done
Croke Park has hosted plenty of noise. Not much like this. Katie Taylor walked to the ring just after 10pm on Saturday night in front of more than 80,000 people, beat Flora Pili on a unanimous decision, and walked away from boxing for good.
The 40-year-old from Bray had told anyone who asked that this would be the last one. She meant it. Three decades after she first pulled on gloves, she closed the book in her own city, with the undisputed super lightweight belts on the line and the whole stadium singing.
Pili arrived unbeaten. The French fighter had the physical edge on paper and none of the answers once the rounds started stacking up. Taylor controlled the range, banked the early exchanges and never let the fight turn into the scrap Pili needed it to be.
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The career behind the farewell
Taylor’s record barely explains what she did to the sport. Olympic gold in London in 2012 came when women’s boxing was still treated as a curiosity on the programme. She turned professional in 2016 and became undisputed at lightweight three years later. She headlined Madison Square Garden against Amanda Serrano in a fight that pulled women’s boxing off the undercard and onto the marquee, then did it again.
Saturday added another undisputed crown, and it came at home. That was the part she had chased for years. Irish fans had never seen her fight professionally in Ireland until this weekend, and the ticket demand told its own story.
A strange night before the main event
The co-main event went sideways before Taylor had even left the dressing room. Thomas Carty tumbled clean through the ropes and onto the ringside floor in the first round against Dave Allen, and the bout was declared a no contest. Nobody in the stadium had seen anything quite like it.
Taylor spoke to RTE in the ring afterwards and called it the perfect way to finish. She leaves with the belts, the record, and a generation of Irish fighters who grew up watching her do it first.
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