Katie Taylor’s rivals respond to Kimberly Connor knockout
Katie Taylor [10(5)-0] retained her WBA and IBF lightweight titles last night but, with the greatest respect to Kimberly Connor, it was not a high-profile match-up.
The Texan veteran had challenged for world title honours unsuccessfully twice – one of which was a points loss to Victoria Noelia Bustos who was recently beaten by Taylor.
The Wicklow woman duly stopped Connor in the third round at the O2 Arena on the Dillian Whyte v Joseph Parker pay-per-view undercard and will now go straight into a defence versus recent WBO featherweight champ Cindy Serrano in Chicago on Saturday October 6th.
Beforehand, Taylor’s manager Brian Peters had lamented the lack of willing challengers for the Olympic gold medallist, and these comments did not go down well with the top names in the division.
Recent WBO super bantamweight champion Amanda Serrano [34(26)-1(0)-1], younger sister of upcoming challenger Cindy, responded angrily on Twitter.
The Puerto Rican five-weight champion chided Peters for his claims, noting on Twitter that she had asked for a Taylor fight and criticised the choice of Connor – whom she stopped in two rounds back in 2011.
I don’t make BS callouts, my sister just took the fight with her so stop it!. Not sure what this is about when I’ve expressed wanting this fight. Let’s see how she does against an opponent I stopped in her prime coming off of 9 Wins, not a 37yr Old mom like she is today ♀️
— Amanda Serrano (@Serranosisters) July 28, 2018
Rick Ramos, the manager and trainer recent Taylor foe Jessica McCaskill [5(3)-2(0)], her toughest fight to date, also got involved, claiming that Natasha Jonas and Chantelle Cameron both wanted to fight Taylor last night.
Her team is full of crap talking nonsense. She’s getting a tune up tonight could have chosen me but they took my sister. I wonder Why? ♀️
— Amanda Serrano (@Serranosisters) July 28, 2018
Immediately following Taylor’s destructive performance, Cameron [7(5)-0] sent out a thinly-veiled Tweet stating that she will be “ready” and subsequently shared numerous responses calling for the fight.
I’ll be ready
— Chantelle Cameron (@chantellecam) July 28, 2018
The 27-year-old Barry McGuigan-managed fighter has reeled off two big wins this year, outpointing two-time world title challenger Myriam Dellal before becoming the first person to stop four-time challenger Natalia Vanesa Aguirre.
Jonas [6(5)-0], who is currently at super featherweight and set to face former Taylor foe Viviane Obenauf, was less confrontational.
I’m just taking it all in!
— Natasha Jonas (@TashaJonas) July 28, 2018
Serrano then drew attention to her own win over Connor.
This is how it looked when I Stopped Kimberly Connor. I didn’t need the Refs help @loudibella @StephenEspinoza pic.twitter.com/q3Qpo0Z5qA
— Amanda Serrano (@Serranosisters) July 28, 2018
One fighter that won’t be looking for a Taylor fight in the near future is Top Rank’s Mikaela Mayer [6(3)-0].
The American has revealed that she will be stepping down to super featherweight but, like Jonas, she hopes to return to lightweight with a world title and, therefore, greater bargaining power for big fights.
Going down to 130 for this next fight. Just a warning for the girls in the super featherweight division to step their game up. @trboxing @espn #boxing pic.twitter.com/ofIgpopJyx
— Mikaela Mayer (@MikaelaMayer1) July 27, 2018
I’m going to 135 don’t worry. Just getting the belts at 130 first because 1. I can make the weight so why not take the division
2. So I can go into the 135 lb division as a champ
THATS where the money is. https://t.co/REDJkOJqSk— Mikaela Mayer (@MikaelaMayer1) July 28, 2018