‘Just mental’ – Bobbi Flood Recalls Watching Katie Taylor’s Olympic Homecoming as he Prepares for Croke Park
The significance of stepping onto the Katie Taylor farewell train is not lost on the rising Dublin prospect, who recalls watching her open-top bus Olympic return to Bray as a young fan.
Like so many young Irish boxers, the Irish trailblazer was an inspiration to Bobbi Flood, and as such, fighting on the same bill as her this weekend is massive for the prospect.
Flood fights fellow 21-year-old Jack Swallow on Matchroom’s Croke Park bill on Saturday and is delighted with the opportunity.
The Cabra BC graduate knows how lucky he is to populate such a high-profile card in such a venue. However, it’s the Taylor element that makes it ‘special’.
“It’s going to be really special,” he said.
“After winning gold at the London Olympics, Katie came back to Bray and did an open-top bus tour. I remember going down to see her back then, so to now be fighting on her undercard, at Croke Park, is just mental.”
It will be an emotional moment for a fighter, who has twice fought in the 3Arena in his young career, but emotion and boxing always come hand in hand for a fighter who lost his mother young.
“Boxing’s always been my gateway away from the emotional stuff. With me missing my ma, boxing’s always kept me busy,” the boxer who was trained by his father through the amateurs adds.
“And when I lost my granddad two years ago, I ended up winning a national title. Boxing’s just my way of coping.”
Taylor is particularly important to the Stephen Smith trained talent because she was once his Olympic inspiration.
Flood was targeting Olympic gold until a change in Olympic weights saw his boxing dreams shift to the pro ranks.
The goal was always to become an Olympic champion but, with the weights changing, it wasn’t meant to be. So now I want to become a world champion in the pro game.
“With them changing the weight class from 71 to 70kg, that 1kg was too hard to get off when you’re holding the weight for so long. And 80kg was just too big of a jump.”
