We have a date, a location and a probable opponent for Katie Taylor’s first world title defence, all we need now is a venue.
On December 15, Katie Taylor will defend her WBA lightweight championship in London. Although nothing has been confirmed yet, Jessica McCaskill is being touted as the likely challenger to the Pride of Bray’s newly-acquired throne.
Rather than be on the undercard of another huge title fight, this time Taylor will provide the main event. At this stage of her professional career, headlining a stadium event the other side of the Irish Sea is out of the question. Although the venue Eddie Hearn has in mind, as he told IFL TV, seems a tad on the small side.
“Might do it at York Hall. I’m struggling for a venue really and I just thought it’s probably like a 3,500 show, so why go to a 5,000 or 6,000 and why not stick it in York Hall, get all the Irish in?
Katie Taylor stuns Sanchez to become World Champion https://t.co/1Op9ALKHNP
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) October 28, 2017
York Hall is really small. Don’t let the fact that it rhymes undermine that fact. Its official capacity is 1,200 and considering the vision Hearn has for the card, it’s no wonder why he’s thinking about going a little bigger.
“It’s going to be a mad show. If we go to York Hall, we can’t even go on sale with the tickets because you’ve got Katie Taylor defending her world title, we’re trying to make Jake Ball against Miles Shinkwin, you’ve got Lewis Ritson is going to defend his British [lightweight] title, you’ve got Gamal Yafai defending his title, you may have Martin Ward for the European title, you’ve got Lawrence Okolie, you’ve got Joe Cordina, because this is our last chance to get everyone out before the end of the year.”
“Now that I just told you that, I might go to a bigger venue!”
With Tony Bellew and David Haye scheduled for a highly-anticipated rematch at the O2 just two days after the fight, perhaps a smaller venue might be the right call. Still, though, you get the feeling they could sell 1,200 tickets in Bray alone.
