There are two unforgettable images from the Katie Taylor–Amanda Serrano trilogy. The first: Taylor walking into the ring on Friday night beneath the green, orange, and white lights of the Irish flag, her neck solid like a tree trunk, eyes locked forward with unshakable poise, as Even Though I Walk echoed through the arena. The second: hours earlier, Yulihan Luna, bloodied and battered, stood beside a glamorous ring girl, her oiled body on display, grinning stiffly for a camera that wasn’t pointed at the fighter.
That’s boxing.
That’s also what it means to be a woman in the ring.
Inside Madison Square Garden – part cathedral, part colosseum – Katie Taylor entered the arena like a warrior headed for sacrifice. Her hands hung low, her face unreadable, and the atmosphere was both somber and divine. I’m no believer in religion, and my heart was with Serrano, but in that moment, as the hymn filled the space and Taylor bowed into the ropes, I felt the lights blur like constellations. A single thought pulsed: The Fighter.
This could’ve felt overly dramatic. But it didn’t. Because once the music faded, two women stepped in to risk their legacies, their health, their lives — all in pursuit of something close to greatness. And unlike many sports, boxing’s danger isn’t symbolic. It’s real. It saves no nation. It’s not forced upon anyone. But it’s the very reason boxing feels so raw, so reverent. And when women, long dismissed as too “delicate” to brawl, headline the world’s most iconic arena, that risk carries a new kind of power.
They say styles make fights, but they also shape legacies. Taylor, the Irish legend, is pure discipline and sharp precision. Serrano, the Puerto Rican southpaw raised in Brooklyn, brings heat and heart. Taylor climbed through 15 years of amateur glory. Serrano turned pro at 19 and never looked back. Both in their mid-30s. Both single. Both quiet. Seventeen world titles shared between two soft-spoken titans who gave up everything for the sport.
If Taylor is the surgeon, Serrano is the flamethrower. That contrast gave us fireworks in their first two bouts. But by Friday, everything had shifted. After two razor-close decisions, Serrano tried a new approach — to outbox the boxer. Taylor, scorched by slugfests in the past, chose patience. Jab. Slip. Pivot. From the opening round, it was clear: this wasn’t chaos. This was tactical warfare. Think Mayweather-Pacquiao, not Ali-Frazier I. Some fans felt let down.
But here’s the question: why must female greatness be bloody to feel real?
In most sports, we celebrate a win — ugly or not. But in women’s boxing, we carry a double standard. We demand glory. Drama. Carnage. The fear lingers: if the fight doesn’t entertain, the whole sport could fade. But Taylor and Serrano weren’t chasing cheers. They were chasing victory.
That alone is progress.
True equality in boxing isn’t about putting on a show. It’s about the freedom to be boring. To clinch. To play it safe. To win without spectacle. What made Taylor-Serrano III remarkable wasn’t its excitement — it was that it didn’t have to thrill to matter.
Yet, boxing is a sport of sharp contradictions. To protect yourself, you must risk everything. To chase glory, you must flirt with disaster. And still, many would strip women of the right to even choose this path.
Last year, Serrano and over a dozen top-tier fighters demanded 12 three-minute rounds, just like the men. They didn’t call it a demand — they called it a right:
“We have earned the CHOICE.”
The irony? Boxing is one of the few places in the Western world where a woman can risk her life and get paid. But even here, OnlyFans banners hang on the ropes, bikini-clad women parade between rounds, and fighters wait—bloody, breathless—for their fate. Some fans fly across the globe to support these women, only to call them “autistic lesbians.”
Serrano may earn seven figures, but many women on the undercard take home $1,500, no health insurance, and end up on OnlyFans just to survive.
So what do we really mean by “choice”?
We fight for a woman’s right to give birth — or not. But what about her right to bleed for pride? To suffer not for safety or service, but for glory? Women are told their bodies are sacred — but only when used to serve husbands, children, or faith. In the ring, they reclaim their bodies. Not for motherhood. Not for men. For risk. For defiance. For something that doesn't fit into any mold. Not Madonna. Not whore. Something entirely new.
Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano weren’t asking for sainthood. They wanted a trilogy. They made history, then made it again, and now, they’ve closed the chapter.
Whether Friday night becomes a turning point or just a passing moment — that’s out of their hands.
But for everyone watching — as the arena fell silent before the bell, as flags of Ireland and Puerto Rico shimmered in the rafters, as Taylor’s hand rose and a lone flag drifted down — no matter your belief, nationality, or identity, these two fighters gave us something unforgettable.
They didn’t just impress.
They took every contradiction — in style, in gender, in life and death — and transformed it into one unshakable truth.
This is what reckoning looks like.