‘She’s not in any position to make demands’ – Team Taylor respond to ‘ludicrous’ Persoon offer

Brian Peters has labelled the €300,000 offer made by Delfine Persoon’s team for Katie Taylor to come to Belgium for an undisputed rematch as ‘ludicrous’.

The former WBC champion who lost her title to Taylor in Madison Square Garden on Saturday night and is rematch keen.

The disgruntled Belgian has since let her opinion re the scoring of the close and thrilling encouther known- and points out fears of another ‘injustice’ make her wary of returning to the States.

As a result the 34-year-old, who did claim Ireland or the UK would be acceptable venues, made Taylor an offer to come to Belgium, but an offer Taylor can and did refuse.

The teak tough Police Inspector also suggested her most recent opponent wouldn’t ‘have the guts’ to travel to her homeland – and such a statement was shot down by Peters.

“It’s ludicrous. It actually is a crazy statement. She is not in any position to be making any demands,” he told press at a media lunch at the County Club on Thursday. 

“I think our reaction to her comments is on the table in front of us. These five belts speak for themselves. In fairness to her she is a good fighter and a great champion. But this was her first time to fight in the United States,” added Peters.

“If she is that interested let her go to America and start making a bit of a name for herself. I suppose part of the problem is that every time Katie Taylor fights everybody expects her to win.”

“We certainly give Delfine Persoon, the WBC champion plenty of respect. She is a great fighter. She had more knock-outs than Katie had fights. But we have our plans and our path set out and we will stick with that.”

It’s certainly not a lack of guts that would prevent the new undisputed lightweight world champion fighting in Belgium. Any rematch between the pair would be a mega event that would now garner world interest. It’s a natural fit for a big American card and in time and with some building could possibly be a historic headline event.

The sum mentioned, too, would likely be below what the fight would generate in America on the lucrative DAZN profile – indeed, Taylor likely earned more than €300,000 last weekend.

Taylor herself didn’t see the logic in hosting the fight in mainland Europe.

“It doesn’t make any sense to go to Belgium,” she said.