Delfine Persoon reveals $100,000 offer to Katie Taylor

WBC lightweight champion Delfine Persoon [42(17)-1(1)] has revealed that her team have made an offer to face IBF-WBA champion Katie Taylor.

Bray’s Taylor has ambitions to be undisputed champion at 135lbs and beyond but the two remaining beltholders at the weight, Persoon and WBO titlist Rose Volante, were said to be reluctant to face the Olympic gold medallist.

Having seen talks for a fight last weekend come to nothing, Taylor [12(5)-0] looks set to finally face Volante in Philadelphia in March and Persoon claims she too is more than willing to face the Matchroom star.

Indeed, the long-reigning and pound-for-pound-rated Belgian has claimed that her team has made an offer to fight Taylor in a big unification, presumably in Belgium.

Persoon told Irish boxing journalist Kevin Byrne that “my manager has offered her a purse of $100,000, to her team.”

Knowing her value within the Taylor title puzzle, the punching police office added that “I want the fight v Katie Taylor.”

“If Taylor wants to unify all the world lightweight titles, she must get past me first. I am ready for her.”

33-year-old Persoon, having previously held the IBF belt in 2012, dethroned Erica Anabella Farias in 2014 to pick up the WBC strap. The Flemish fighter has defended the green belt a total of eight times, most recently this month versus Kenyan Judy Waguthii when she scored a tenth-round stoppage.

Whether her team’s offer of $100,000 to Taylor will be enough remains to be seen – especially as it has previously been said by the Irishwoman’s manager, Brian Peters, that she took home a “six-figure” sum for defend her WBA title versus Jessica McCaskill last December.

However, it is encouraging to see Persoon speak positively about a fight with Taylor as we head into a potentially massive 2019 for the Wicklow woman.

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