Katie Taylor's football career: Famous teammates, caps and scholarship option
But she was also known at one stage for her football exploits, having earned eleven caps for the Ireland senior women's national team before focusing solely on her boxing career.
She scored two long-range efforts during her time with the Girls in Green against Hungary and Italy, in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Indeed, speaking to SportsJOE in 2022, she revealed that at one stage football was her preferred sport.
She said: "I think at one stage during my teenage years, it was probably my number one sport, and I was thinking about pursuing it professionally at some point.
"But obviously, eventually, the boxing hit and there was no real competition about which sport I was going to choose."
She began her football career with St. Fergal's and Newtown Juniors, both local sides in Bray. She regularly played boys football throughout her underage career, lining out for Wicklow in the Kennedy Cup in 2000.
In a 2019 interview with Sky Sports, Taylor revealed that she had received offers to play college football in the United States.
She said: "I did have a chance to get a football scholarship over in America when I left school, but boxing was always my number one passion.
"I knew I had to choose between the two sports and I obviously chose boxing."
Stephanie Zambra, Aine O'Gorman and Niamh Fahey are among the undisputed super-lightweight world champion's former teammates.
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Irish Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Katie Taylor ranks high on AI's combined male and female combined P4P list
Katie Taylor is the fourth greatest fighter of the 21st century, at least according to AI, after a new list was released. IFL TV Boxing recently shared an AI-generated list of the top Pound-for-Pound fighters in the 21st century, with the Bray Bomber ahead of Andre Ward. Understandably, Floyd Mayweather topped the list, retiring with a 50-0 record, while two-time Olympic champion Claressa Shields is the only female higher than Taylor on the list. Manny Pacquiao is in third, while the AI list says of Taylor in fourth, "Olympic gold medalist, undisputed lightweight (and super-lightweight) pro champion, significant in elevating women's boxing." Taylor's rival, Amanda Serrano, is in sixth place, with Oscar De La Hoya, Laila Ali, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Holly Holm rounding out the list. Although lists are always subjective and open for debate, the general public seemed dismayed with the selections, with a number of notable absences. The three current top-ranked men in Oleksandry Usyk, Naoya Inoue, and Terence Crawford all failed to make the list, nor are the likes of Joe Calzaghe, Canelo Alvarez, or Bernard Hopkins. "Biggest banter list I've seen," said one user. "AI is broken," said another. And although the AI-generated list won't be the definitive list to define the greatest, it at least shows the esteem in which Taylor is regarded. Having pioneered women's boxing and won an Olympic Gold medal in 2012, Taylor went on to carve one of the truly great boxing careers for herself. Most recently, Taylor put together a comprehensive performance to convincingly beat Amanda Serrano in Madison Square Garden to win the trilogy 3-0. She also further cemented her legacy by bouncing back against her shock loss to Chantelle Cameron with a split decision win in November 2023. Now 39, Taylor is certainly in the twilight of her career and has given no indication if she will retire or fight on.
Irish Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Katie Taylor update as she deals with 'a few injuries' after win over Serrano
Katie Taylor will not fight again this year and may not fight again, according to her promoter Eddie Hearn. But the Matchroom boss admits a Croke Park bout would be very difficult for the undisputed super-lightweight champion to turn down. The Bray Bomber defeated Amanda Serrano for a third time last month on a historic night at Madison Square Garden and may opt to retire. Taylor has 'a few injuries' at the moment and won't fight again this year. "After the last fight with Amanda Serrano, it's the first time I've heard her say in a press conference 'if I fight again'," Hearn told Sky Sports. "It's been a remarkable career. It would be a great way to go out by winning the trilogy against Amanda Serrano but the lure of a Croke Park fight would be something quite spectacular. "She's got a few injuries at the moment. She won't fight again this year and she may not fight again. But if the Croke Park opportunity presents itself, it would be very difficult for her to turn down. "For me, the greatest female fighter of all-time, probably one of the greatest sportspeople from Ireland. She's an absolute icon and a credit to the sport. If that's the end of the road. What a career, what a legacy, what a journey but I can also see her having another couple of fights. "We will sit down in a couple months and we will definitely speak to the sports minister in Ireland, who's been vocal about the possibility and desire to host a Katie Taylor fight in Ireland. Katie Taylor in Croke Park would be something we would never forget." A Croke Park bout has so far failed to come to fruition for Taylor due to the costs associated with hiring the Dublin venue. It is understood that the estimated cost to stage a boxing event at GAA Headquarters is around €1.1 million, which includes rental fees, security, and other operational costs. In comparison, an equivalent event at Wembley Stadium is believed to cost about €463,000. However, Jake Paul's Most Valuable Promotions have suggested that they are prepared to fund a Croke Park fight between Taylor and Chantelle Cameron, the only person to have beaten the 39-year-old as a professional. Chantelle Cameron, Eddie Hearn and Katie Taylor. (Image: (Photo by)) "Chantelle is a tough fight for Katie," MVP CEO Nakisa Bidarian told BBC Sport. "It's her only loss. So you have to really see if that makes sense, and we'd like to do that at Croke Park. We haven't talked to Matchroom about it, but Jake and I have talked at length about it." Taylor has been ordered by the WBC to defend her super-lightweight world title against the Northampton native. The 2012 Olympic champion took aim at Cameron following her victory over Serrano last month and suggested she had no interest in fighting her for a third time. "I think Chantelle has to see if she can sell out a 1,000-seater arena first. I don't think she can sell out any stadium at all," she said. "I think I made her more money than she really deserves, to be quite honest." Cameron has since hit back at those comments, labelling Taylor 'trashy' over making them. She told Sky Sports: "Usually she's quite respectful and she's a massive role model for the younger generation. To put someone down and discredit another boxer, when you're a huge role model, she didn't really carry herself well in that press conference. "I was quite shocked at her comments. We're trying to grow the sport, instead of talking and behaving like that. You're just discrediting the sport and it's not really a good image for the next generation coming through." She added: "Women's boxing, it's a hard enough sport without talking about money and purses and who's getting paid what and 'I'm going to give you this payday'. You don't have to like each other, not at all. "But to make women's boxing grow and get more people following and watching it and also the younger generation to behave in a certain way without being trashy, then we should all be supporting each other. Again, you don't have to like each other, but you don't have to put others down."
Irish Times
5 days ago
- Irish Times
Katie Taylor named Sportswoman of the Month for July
It's often a source of no little puzzlement to non-boxing folk that after knocking seven bells out of each other through a bout, fighters can then bring themselves to embrace at the end and pay lavish tributes to each other. They're made of different stuff, these people. But that's how it all ended up between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano come the conclusion of their epic trilogy at Madison Square Garden in July when the Bray woman made it 3-0 against the Puerto Rican to remain the undisputed world lightweight champion. 'What an amazing champion,' she said of Serrano. 'We created history together three times. My name will always be embedded with hers and I am very happy about that. It's amazing to have a rival like that in the sport.' Serrano, meanwhile, paid a powerful tribute in return. 'Thank you, Katie Taylor, for an incredible three fights and 30 rounds. It has truly been an honour to face you, a true champion and warrior. So blessed to have shared the ring with such an amazing fighter. To be considered the Greatest, you have to act like one. She does that both in and out of the ring. Thank you truly.' READ MORE But both fighters had been warriors through the trilogy. The first of their bouts, in 2022, also in MSG, was named 'Fight of the Year' by Sports Illustrated. Taylor pipped that one by a split decision, Serrano feeling decidedly aggrieved about the result, and she was no happier when Taylor won by a unanimous decision in their second meeting, this time in Arlington, Texas. Brutal and bloody it was too, Taylor rarely having taken that level of punishment through her career. Come the end of fight three? As our own Keith Duggan, who was there that night, put it: ' Taylor managed to erase the question marks and silence the grumbles after their previous two battles to finish with a supremely controlled performance. She owned the night.' The crowd reacts as Katie Taylor is declared the winner of her third fight against Amanda Serrano, at New York's Madison Square Garden. Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA It was a conclusive victory, even if one judge called it a draw while the other two scored it an emphatic 97-93 in Taylor's favour. She put this much cleaner win down to her boxing 'smart', rather than 'just ending up in a war'. She's 39 and she's still fine-tuning her craft. As she reflected after, a night such as this, when the famous New York venue hosted its first all-female card, was the stuff of her dreams when she started out in the sport. 'To be headlining an all-female card was an absolute privilege,' she said. 'These are the sort of opportunities that people didn't even think possible a few years ago.' The fight was screened live on Netflix, averaging six million viewers, which put it just behind the NCAA 'March Madness' basketball final in the list of 2025's most watched women's sporting events. The crowd of 19,721 was the biggest ever for an all-women's boxing card and the highest attendance for a female sporting event in MSG's history. Our five-time Sportswoman of the Year, as you'll know by now, is no stranger to making history. Is there more to come? We'll see. If she could sort out that appearance in Croke Park, you'd suspect there's another fight left in her. Previous monthly winners – December : Ellen Walshe (Swimming); January : Hazel Finn (Basketball); February : Lara Gillespie (Cycling); March : Kate O'Connor and Sarah Healy (Athletics); April : Aoife Wafer (Rugby); May : Katie McCabe (Soccer); June : Fiona Murtagh (Rowing).
