Katie Taylor looks likely to box again before the end of the year.
The undisputed lightweight world champion has been out of action since her historic win over Amanda Serrano earlier this year.
Taylor, who recently hit out at Jake Paul – the influencer-turned-fighter-turned-fight-maker – over his “nonsense” demand that the Bray lady should go down in weight to either 126 pounds or 130 pounds to rematch Serrano, beat the Puerto Rican-born Brooklynite unanimously at Madison Square Garden in New York back in April, exclusively live on DAZN.
And the 36-year-old Olympic champion from London’s Games in 2012, has been itching to get back to action since.
Her promoter, Eddie Hearn, revealed the first minor detail of Taylor’s return when hosting a question and answer session on social media on Thursday, insisting that further news was due “soon”.
Boxing Social has been reliably informed that a date in November has been held by Matchroom in Liverpool, at the M&S Bank Arena, with ‘KT’ – the WBA Super, IBF, WBO and WBC titlist in the 135-pound division who also holds the coveted Ring Magazine belt and has had six successful defences of her undisputed crown – expected to feature on that card on a date to be confirmed, with the aforementioned DAZN expected to carry the broadcast.
Meanwhile, Hearn went on to say that we would see a fight between Fabio Wardley and Nathan Gorman before the year is out.
The showdown has been ordered for the vacant British heavyweight title after it was relinquished by WBO number one contender Joe Joyce.
The pair have been very vocal on social media about the idea of facing each other and Hearn has added fuel to the fire by saying that we will see that fight “100 per cent” this year.
Hearn is set to work alongside Wasserman Boxing, which promotes Gorman, to stage the highly-anticipated catchweight clash between Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn.
The pair meet on October 8 at the O2 Arena in London, on DAZN PPV in the UK and Ireland and DAZN worldwide, with neither fighter allowed to tip the scales heavier than 157 pounds without paying a whopping $100,000-per-pound fine.
Kalle Sauerland, the head of global boxing at Wasserman, has stated that the idea for the supporting cast to the clash between Eubank Jr. and Benn is to pit the best Matchroom talent against that of the team with an exclusive broadcast deal with Channel 5.
Wardley, who is managed by former WBC world heavyweight title challenger Dillian Whyte, is promoted by Hearn and Matchroom, so that fight with Gorman could well land on the big pay-per-view bill in two months’ time.
In other news, John Ryder could well be on the cusp of a clash against a former world champion. The 34-year-old southpaw is on a three-fight win streak since losing a contentious 12-round decision to Liverpool’s Callum Smith back in 2019 for the WBA Super and WBC Diamond titles at super-middleweight.
His promoter, Eddie Hearn, revealed recently that talks were underway for him to meet Jaime Munguia, the Mexican ex-holder of the WBO super-welterweight championship who is now up at middleweight, and the Matchroom boss has now stated that he is “ready to make [that] fight.”
Chantelle Cameron is likely to fight for the undisputed crown in her next fight. The Jamie Moore-trained super-lightweight is the current holder of the IBF and WBC world titles in the division.
She was last in action in May at the O2 Arena in London when she beat former Katie Taylor opponent Victoria Noelia Bustos on points and was meant to fight Kali Reis, the American who has the IBO, WBA Super and WBO titles at the weight, in an undisputed fight. But it is understood that discussions have taken place for the 31-year-old (16-0, 8 KOs) to step up in weight to challenge Jessica McCaskill for all the belts at welterweight.