Slam Dunk – Katie Taylor heading to the home of the Celtics
Katie Taylor [10(5)-0] will be looking to join Jo Jo White, Kevin McHale, John Havlicek, Bill Russell, and Larry Bird as sports stars who entertained in the legendary TD Garden.
The home of the Boston Celtics and the Boston Bruins will be the venue for the Irish sensations next world title defence.
It was confirmed earlier in the week that the Bray native’s IBF and WBA world title defence against Cindy Serrano [27(10)-5(0)-3] would be moved from October 6th to October 20th and from Chicago to Boston.
Initially, Taylor’s title fight was to feature alongside two-division world champion Jessie Vargas, middleweight contender Demetrius Andrade, an IBF light heavyweight title defence from Artur Beterbiev versus Callum Johnson, and a heavyweight bout featuring ‘Big Baby’ Jarrell Miller.
Matchroom USA had been due to run a show on October 20th in L.A. but, following the agreement of Billy Joe Saunders v Andrade for the Englishman’s WBO middleweight title, there has been a shuffle around.
Although Boston was confirmed to host the world title fights the exact venue remained unknown until Eddie Hearn confirmed the October 20th fight night will play out in the TD Garden.
The decision to put Ireland’s only reigning unified world champ on the card proves Eddie Hearn obviously confident Taylor will be able to draw upon support from the large Irish-American community.
The Irish market was something Brian Peters proved capable of tapping into when he took Matthew Macklin to New York and the manager of the Olympic gold medal will be looking to do the same again with Taylor.
The fact Hearn has noticed the potential of playing the Irish card on the East Coast is also good news for other Irish fighters. The Matchroom boss may look at other Irish fighters for some of his DAZN cards in the future.
