Katie Taylor

This was a year when Katie Taylor secured her legendary status outside of Ireland. The only way to top it is with a legendary night at home.

Time is a healer, though, and the long and short of it is that to run a show in Dublin now doesn’t carry the same risks as it might have more than four years ago. There will be an element of financial assistance provided by the State, a safety net in the event that ticket sales don’t meet expectations. It was decided that an Irish history-maker such as Taylor belonged in her country’s most historic sporting venue. There was weight to that admission: Taylor had spent the previous few days batting away questions comparing the two, just as she did in 2019 and 2020 after her most significant previous professional victories against Delfine Persoon. The alternative was to publicly acknowledge that Daniel Kinahan’s indivisible links to the sport, and the accompanying security risk since the Regency shooting in 2016, had rendered Ireland virtually inhospitable to major professional boxing events. Glances to the left, to the right, and a quick sweep behind reveal that this includes, without exception, every member of the press. ‘Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!’ The final bell — and an extra few whacks of it in case the fighters couldn’t hear it. Taylor, desperate to fight in Ireland since turning pro, has in time come to understand that her dream is a logistical nightmare. There are 10 seconds remaining in the bout and nobody dares check if there remains a roof on the building because Taylor and Serrano have thrown caution to the wind. Her controversial undisputed-title victory over fellow lightweight beltholder Delfine Persoon at Madison Square Garden in June 2019 sparked doubts among the previously uninitiated as to her legitimacy — not only as the ruler of the 135-pound division but as the living legend as which she had been packaged since signing with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom in 2016. That she won five World Championships and six Europeans as an amateur didn’t really put her on the map internationally. Taylor’s RTÉ Sports Personality of the Year award for 2022 will sit alongside the other two in the Oldcourt estate where she grew up but recognition of her unique transcendence is these days transatlantic.