Four days out from Katie Taylor’s long awaited farewell fight in Croke Park and the mood among her team is one of misty-eyed euphoria.
Tuesday’s press conference, which kicks off a week of promos ahead of Saturday’s fight, was largely a rerun of the fight announcement press conference back in June, except this time transferred to the Helix Theatre in DCU rather than the Hogan Stand premium section.
The undergraduates who strolled around the campus didn’t seem that cognisant of the fact that Katie Taylor was in the area.
It was a slightly incongruous scene inside. Regulars on the GAA beat mingled with Matchroom and DAZN employees – who were identifiable by their Cockney accents. The soundtrack was that tin whistle-heavy instrumental that plays on a constant loop in Croke Park for the half hour preceding throw-in.
The biggest difference from June was the absence of any anxiety or speculation about how the event would sell. Any fears on that front proved unfounded.
Taylor becomes the first boxer to headline a fight at Croke Park since Muhammad Ali since 1972 – and Brian Peters might be inclined to point out here that this is flattering company for Ali to be keeping.
Infamously, only 18,000 or thereabouts attended the Ali fight against Al ‘Blue’ Lewis and the promoter was subsequently berated by the GAA director general for setting the ticket prices too high.
For this fight contrast, half of the 80,000 tickets were snapped up on pre-sale and the other half were sold out within 17 minutes of becoming available on 28 July.
Before the live-streamed press conference, 18 members of the press pack were ushered into an extremely cramped dressing room where they were to wait for Eddie Hearn.
“Wow, blimey! This is small!” Hearn exclaimed as he arrived in the changing room.
Reflecting on the speed with which tickets were sold, Hearn admitted to a slight pang of regret that they hadn’t got around to doing the Croke Park fight a bit sooner.
While he had been relatively pally with his old sparring partner Peter McKenna at June’s press conference – “Peter, me old mate, me old mucca!” – Hearn did hark back to his testier moments negotiating with Croke Park and referenced what he regarded as their excessive negativity.
“People can sort of deflate your spirit, which is quite unusual for me,” Hearn said. “They did deflate my spirit a bit over the years. They made me question whether we could do it or whether it would actually work.
“I’m disappointed with myself that I allowed that to happen because maybe we could have done it earlier.
“If Croker had originally gone, ‘Yes, this is going to be massive!’, we would have done it.
“But they was like, ‘Hmm… I dunno’. And it was like, well blimey, if they’re not sure, do we really want to be gambling with these costs?
“Listen, they [Croke Park] helped out as well, they were fantastic in the end,” he added.
Hearn again relayed the story about Taylor and Peters arriving up to his office in the wake of the disappointing Rio Olympics and making their impassioned pitch.
Hearn Jr, as we know, has inherited all of his father’s loquaciousness and hype-man flair.
Barry Hearn was the chief promoter of one of the most famous fights on Irish soil back in 1995, when his star attraction Chris Eubank came to fight Steve Collins and Noel Smith convinced him that Millstreet was “just around the corner” from Cork airport. (“IT WAS ABOU’ AN ‘OUR ‘N A ‘ALF FROM CAAAUK AIRPORT!!!”)
But Hearn Snr was a sceptic when it came to Taylor’s potential as a money spinner for the Matchroom brand.
“We decided to headline her in November [in 2016]” recalls Hearn. “I think we paid her – she’s still having a go at me about this – six grand for her debut. For a four rounder.
“Which at the time, in women’s boxing by the way, was a lot of money.
“I said to my Dad, I’m going to put Katie Taylor on last. And he’s like, ‘What? A women’s fight?’
“I was like, ‘yeah, dad, like she’s unbelievable. You’ve got to watch her.’
“He said, ‘No one’s interested in women’s boxing, son.’ It’s the same sort of thing Frank Warren would say – or anyone from that era. And he [Barry Hearn] watched her and went ‘oh my God!'”
As can be the case with these professional boxing bouts, the lead-up is more a celebration of the business achievement of arranging the fight than it is about the fight itself – which in this case is nearly an afterthought.
Overall, it was more ‘Art of the Deal’ than ‘Rocky’.
At the top table, Peter Aiken fobbed off all the credit he was getting for the sellout, stressing that “she [Taylor] sold the tickets.”
Brian Peters, not as emotional as in June but just as enthusiastic, anointed Taylor the greatest Irish sportsperson of all time – “No disrespect to Roy Keane, you get a good second” – nominated Barry Keoghan for an Oscar for his performance in the promo and declared that he’d arranged it with ‘God almighty’ that there’d be “no rain after 5 o’clock.”
Taylor’s challenger Flora Pili – who as far as Joe Public is concerned, may as well be called ‘AN Other’ – was introduced to cordial applause from the crowd in the Helix. She walked out in dreadlocks painted in the French tricolour.
Pili last fought in Dublin in a low-key international round robin amateur event in the National Stadium back in April and May 2017. She lost both her fights, first to Kellie Harrington and then to Italy’s Irma Testa.
She has amassed a 12 from 12 record in her professional career and in her last victory, she picked up a world title belt, the IBO super lightweight title, which Taylor herself vacated in late 2025.
Several times, amid the giddiness and the air of self-congratulation, Hearn and other members of Taylor’s team did stress that “this is a real fight.”
Taylor herself, who didn’t speak to the press pack today, reiterated her gratitude to the public for their support, saying “I’m not sure there’s another country in the world where 80,000 people would turn up for a female athlete.”
Overall, it was more ‘Art of the Deal’ than ‘Rocky’.
She became slightly choked up as she recalled her childhood days, turning up to boxing clubs disguised a as a boy so she’d be let fight.
“I was walking into some boxing gyms as a young girl, being sniggered at and laughed at. Who’s this girl trying to be a boxer? I had to earn people’s respect along the way.
“I’m so delighted that these young girls coming through now don’t have to go through the same struggles and adversity that I had to go through. The door is actually opened for them.
“You walk into every boxing gym now and it’s packed with female fighters. That to me is the greatest part about this legacy.”
Watch Katie Taylor v Flora Pili in their undisputed World Super Lightweight title bout live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player on Saturday from 8pm, listen live on RTÉ 2fm or follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app