Katie Taylor’s GWOAT Rival Explains Why Irish Star Deserved Victory
If there was one person outside of Team Amanda Serrano that would benefit from Katie Taylor’s rematch win being deemed ‘controversial’ it would be Claressa Shields.
Not only is the two-time Olympic medal winner a close friend to the Puerto Rican great, she is Taylor’s main ‘greatest of all time’ rival.
Indeed, the multi-weight world champion has never had an issue with telling anyone she is the GWOAT and why she should be seen as the best woman ever to lace them up.
With that in mind, it would have been easy for Shields to row in with those questioning Taylor’s close win over ‘The Real Deal’ on the Netflix broadcast card in Dallas on Friday.
However, the always upfront American claimed the 38-year-old Bray native was a deserved winner.
I thought Amanda had the bigger shots in the middle and the beginning of the fight,” Shields said.
“But who landed the better shots? Who did the countering? Who had better defence? It was Katie Taylor.
“I knew the fight was going to be really close but once the headbutt happened, Katie got real smart and kept aiming for the cut with big hooks.
“Amanda’s defence up top was not together and she just walked to Taylor and stalked her down.
“She walked her down and she was trying but Katie fought her off the back-foot, she countered and she circled her and Amanda did not cut off the ring.
“I think Katie won the fight by a hair. It is what it is and look, I wanted Amanda to win!
“Women’s boxing won tonight but if you ask me my personal opinion I thought Katie edged it by just a little bit because she is very strategic, stuck to the gameplan and won rounds even though she was tired as hell.
“She would just explode with those five punches and land everyone because Amanda doesn’t have a good defence. What do you want me to say?”
Serrano and her team threw since retracted ‘dirty fighter’ jibes the way of Taylor in the immediate aftermath of the action-packed rematch.
They suggested the groundbreaking star was more than liberal with the use of her head.
Shields didn’t think that was the case, and speaking to Boxing Enthusiast argued otherwise.
‘I think the headbutts happened the same way in the first fight and I don’t think that Katie did them on purpose,” she said.
“She was trying to avoid big shots. She almost got dropped the first round but still, we have to control our heads and be better.”
