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Katie Taylor's Final Fight: A Night of Legacy and Inspiration
Katie Taylor walked into the Helix theatre on Wednesday night and, with one line, flicked away any talk of age or decline.
“I feel great, I think 40 is the new 30, isn’t it?” she told DAZN, three days out from what she says will be her final professional fight, against Flora Pili at Croke Park.
The number doesn’t bother her. The occasion clearly thrills her.
A theatre turned fight village
The Helix, usually a home for lectures and graduation ceremonies, had been turned into a small, noisy outpost of Matchroom’s travelling circus. A full ring sat plonked in front of the stage, lights glaring, music up, cameras everywhere.
The crowd was a strange cocktail. Youtubers darted about, fizzing with energy, greeting each other with elaborate handshakes and filming every angle. Mainstream TV crews lined up their shots. Print journalists – plenty of them more used to muddy GAA pitches than prizefights – hovered in a corner, swapping notes on Gabriel Bannigan’s resignation as Monaghan manager.
They glanced around the room, half-amused, half-wary.
“You wouldn’t want to mess with the wrong lad, would ya?” one reporter muttered, eyeing the heavily tattooed Matchroom T-shirt brigade dotted around the auditorium.
If the Youtubers were just delighted to be in the building, the writers had a more practical concern: would Katie speak afterwards? Rumours drifted through early that she wouldn’t. By the time the main attraction appeared, most had already accepted they’d be going home without a word from the champion they were there to cover.
Under the lights, undercard in the spotlight
Before Taylor’s entrance, the undercard took its turn in the ring. One by one, fighters climbed through the ropes to shadow-box, loosen up and sell their stories to the cameras.
First up, Dubliner Bobbi Flood – three wins from three – bounced around the canvas, letting his hands go in sharp bursts to “Move or Not” by Purple Disco Machine. A couple of voices from the seats cut through the music.
“G’WAN BOBBI!”
Flood finished, soaked in the moment, and made way for the next wave. Emmet Brennan, 35 and a former Olympian, went through his paces ahead of just his fifth professional bout. He meets Taylor Bevan, the English-born Welsh fighter and former Commonwealth Games silver medallist, in one of the more intriguing matchups of the night.
The other women’s fight also had a strong presence in the room. “Meatball” Molly McCann, the 36-year-old former UFC fan favourite who only turned pro with Matchroom last year, bounced on her toes and soaked up the Dublin atmosphere. She’s unbeaten in four and faces Sylwia Doligala at bantamweight.
Asked how she was feeling about Saturday night, McCann didn’t bother with subtlety.
“It’s f***in’ Dublin, isn’t it?” she roared in a thick Liverpudlian accent that could have had the old Brookside producers reaching for a dial-down note.
The champion steps into the ring
Before Taylor appeared, a tracksuit-clad Dublin rapper, Casper Walsh, took the stage to warm up the crowd. Then the music shifted, heads turned, and the reason everyone was there finally emerged from the wings.
Katie Taylor stepped into the light, climbed through the ropes and saluted the fans. The applause rolled around the theatre, long and loud, the sound of a city saying thank you as much as welcome back.
She moved straight into a slick, lively workout with coach Ross Enamait. Pads popped. Feet skipped. For someone who “just turned 40 a few weeks ago”, as she put it, there was no hint of a farewell lap. This looked like a fighter still obsessed with the details.
“It’s been an amazing few months, preparing for this fight,” she said afterwards.
“I’m expecting a tough fight but this is what I’m made for, this is what I’m born for.
“This isn’t going to be a walk in the park, I have a tough, young challenger in front of me, but I purposely chose a tough challenger for my final fight.
“I built my whole reputation on taking tough fights throughout my whole career. Why treat my last fight any differently?”
Legacy in real time
If the talk all week has circled around legacy, Wednesday night showed it in real time.
When Taylor finished her workout, a 10-year-old girl named Clodagh Keating was invited into the ring to share a few moments with her hero. Clodagh isn’t even a member of a boxing club – not yet – but she climbed between the ropes to a roar that might stay with her for life.
Overcome by the occasion, she was almost screaming crying as Taylor gently helped her into a pair of gloves and guided her through a brief spar. It was raw, emotional, and utterly genuine: the greatest Irish boxer of her generation, possibly of all time, handing the stage to a little girl who might now spend the next decade chasing that feeling.
If Taylor’s aim is to inspire the next wave of girls into boxing, this was the perfect snapshot. No speech required. Just a kid in gloves, shaking with tears and joy.
A night owned by the cameras
As quickly as it had begun, it was over. Taylor left the ring to another ovation. The fans filtered out, still buzzing. The Youtubers kept filming.
The reporters, though, had their suspicions confirmed. There would be no mixed zone, no huddle around a dressing-room door, no last-minute quotes to file. They slipped away, having spoken to nobody of note, their notebooks light and their deadlines no less real.
The irony lingered. They could have watched the whole thing on Youtube.
But they would have missed the small things: the nervous energy in the corner, the roar for Bobbi Flood, the crackle in Molly McCann’s voice, the way Clodagh Keating’s hands shook as Katie Taylor tied her gloves.
Three days from Croke Park, those details told the story of a champion who insists 40 is just a number – and a sport that, thanks to her, suddenly has a lot more little girls dreaming of stepping through the ropes.
