The sequel that few asked for, but the one that Taylor and Serrano deserved the last time
My obsession with dinosaurs had begun about a year earlier with a Christmas present of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie on video.
But the day I first sat through Jurassic Park, RTÉ ad breaks and all, was the day the Rangers began to gather dust in the corner unit.
Spielberg — and soon afterwards, the original author, Michael Crichton — had me spellbound. I spent years telling aunts, uncles and teachers that I wanted to become a palaeontologist. My dad, bless him, always encouraged me, but I can't imagine how many times he must have hidden his dismay as he passed me a football only to witness his little nerd of a son compare its dimensions to that of a Diplodocus egg.
My interests would later mutate towards sport but Jurassic Park remains my favourite film. Its greatness perseveres less in the spectacle and more in the questions it poses and the ideas it proposes.
'Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.'
Dr Ian Malcolm's warning to John Hammond, perhaps even more prescient these days than it was when Crichton first committed a longer version of it to paper 36 years ago, now sadly also applies to the franchise that Crichton never intended to create.
Released in cinemas last week, Jurassic World: Rebirth — the sixth sequel to Spielberg's original — struck this JP lifer as a pointless, brainless, soulless affair.
And yet it has enjoyed the biggest global movie opening of 2025 so far, raking in over $320 million worldwide. The Jurassic movies have averaged out at about a billion quid per instalment, so you can expect Universal Studios to continue to flog the bones off this extinct reptile in the years to come.
If you've flicked on Netflix, recently, then, you'll have seen they're flogging a sequel of their own.
At a casual glance, it would be easy to perceive Katie Taylor's latest meeting with Amanda Serrano as being, in its own right, another preposterous summer blockbuster for summer blockbusters' sake.
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Why would Katie go back to the island for a third time when she has already survived it twice?!
She and Serrano can probably think of five to seven million reasons each, for starters.
The Netflix trailer for their trilogy bout at Madison Square Garden, New York, this Friday, contained a curious twist: interspliced into Charlize Theron's narration was the comically Serrano-biased commentary from Taylor-Serrano 2 in Dallas last November, including the line from Serrano's fellow Puerto Rican Brooklynite Rosie Perez that Taylor's razor-thin victory in that rematch would see an 'asterisk' applied to her legacy.
That Perez retracted that comment and apologised the same night apparently mattered not to Netflix, who used it as a hook in their highly produced promo. But they won't be using Perez on Friday night, nor will Mauro Ranallo return on lead commentary in this latest instalment. Taylor's team likely saw to that during contract negotiations.
Hey, Hollywood's a tough business.
When I asked Taylor about this casting development a couple of weeks ago, what do you think she said? Spoiler alert: you're probably going to be correct.
'Yeah, I didn't even see the trailer, to be honest,' Taylor laughed. 'I don't really care what happens, really, beforehand, or what's been said or anything like that.
'And nobody's ever going to remember the trailer… but they will remember the result on fight night and that's all I focus on.'
It's true enough, which is clearly why Netflix embellished the trailer with Perez's infamous quote: most people know full well that Taylor is up 2-0 on her career-long rival and so without controversy, however contrived, this third entry in the series is a tougher sell than the first two.
It all comes to down to this.
KATIE TAYLOR vs. AMANDA SERRANO 3 is coming LIVE on Netflix, Friday July 11 at 8 pm ET | 5 pm PT pic.twitter.com/yqru87AD9F — Netflix (@netflix) June 11, 2025
Taylor, who will again defend her undisputed light-welterweight title on Friday night, turned 39 last week. Serrano will be 37 in October. In athletic years, they're fossils, but in the ring, they were still physical marvels as recently as November.
This trilogy bout may well prove the final act for both of them and nobody would argue the fact that Taylor and Serrano deserve the millions they'll pocket when the dust settles beneath them once more.
And while an unwarranted sequel will always be treated with cynicism, it's only fair to point out that Taylor-Serrano 3 is exactly the follow-up that critics wished Taylor-Serrano 2 could have been.
Unlike Dallas, there will be no predetermined male main event between a YouTuber and a 58-year-old former heavyweight champion entering the ring by way of eight blood transfusions.
Taylor and Serrano have returned from the circus for a stripped-down, back-to-basics boxing event at the scene of their original classic in 2022.
They will headline at Madison Square Garden an all-female card, brimming from top to bottom with world-level talent, live on a streaming platform with over 300 million global subscribers.
This will not be car-crash TV but an elevation of women's boxing and a celebration of the cherished characters who have taken it to unprecedented heights in under a decade. The viewing figures will be organic, no caveats. The paychecks will again be huge.
So, while one more will absolutely hurt, you can understand why it would feel worthwhile, all told. It would certainly make for a more fitting night to bow out than as the co-main event to Jake Paul and Mike Tyson.
With nothing left to prove against Serrano, with her sporting legacy sealed, and with her financial future long since secured, I asked Katie Taylor recently how she could possibly summon the determination to do it all again.
She said: 'I love the fact that I get to do something I love every single day.
'And even though sometimes I wake up and I'm not in the mood for training', Taylor added, 'I'm still so grateful to be in this position and I think that's definitely one of the reasons why I've been able to stay at the top for so long — because of this passion that I have for my sport.'
In which case, who am I to tell this master of the sweet science whether or not she should?
I'll be in New York this week to pick the bones of it for The 42 either way.
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