“The worrying thing is they’re taking it very seriously.”
Eddie Hearn has navigated Katie Taylor all the way through her professional career, and the pair have been very successful.
Under his promotion, Taylor has won multiple world titles at multiple weights, and fought some big names In the process.
Delfine Persoon and Natasha Jonas, are just of the impressive hurdles that the Bray fighter has jumped, but now she faces a new challenge in the form of Firuza Sharipova, and it’s the unknown that is making Hearn worry.
“She comes with a big reputation, a lot of support, and they’ve been quite difficult to be honest with you. They’re not particularly happy about anything.”
“The worrying thing is they’re taking it very seriously. You see a lot of people turn up, ‘Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity.’
“They’re like: ‘We have to get this right. We’re winning this fight and we can’t have anything get in the way of our preparation.’
“That’s a bit worrying. They’re not just here to make up the numbers.
“And there’s a lot unknown about her. Like, if you watch her, she can punch, she’s quite unorthodox, very tough… I don’t know…
“She’s either just a solid fighter or really, really good and really dangerous. I hope it’s just the first one to be honest with you. Katie wants the second one!
“But we just want to get through this fight and then, obviously, (Amanda) Serrano looms.
“It’s just that you see so many banana skins – non-stop now – where people are losing, because they’re thinking [beyond the fight in front of them].
“Katie’s not that kind of fighter, but it’ll certainly be a sigh of relief if her hand can get raised on Saturday and we can move forward to that Serrano fight.”
Eddie Hearn unsure about what Katie Taylor is up against.
They say that the devil you know, is better than the deil you don’t.
“I just don’t know, really, what we’re up against and the whole thing seems quite strange; it feels like we’re up against this sort of country-backed fighter, who has come in on a mission to dethrone Katie. That’s what it feels like.
“Which is good: it means we’re going to get someone who’s coming to win. And there have been a lot of fights with Katie where you know that she is going to win those fights.”
The Matchroom promotor finds comfort in the knowledge that Taylor has come up against huge opposition before, and always came through.
“The Persoon fight was the one that was the toughest of Katie’s career, at MSG, and the rematch was another one where I was extremely nervous.
“The Natasha Jonas fight was tough, Christina Linardatou was quite tough as well. Jessica McCaskill. So, it’s not like she’s breezed through every fight.”
Eddie Hearn wants Taylor to fight Amanda Serrano next.
He believes though that if the Serrano fight goes ahead it will be a defining one in Taylor’s career. And it is very close to being agreed.
“Contracts aren’t signed but we certainly have a position with both teams where we’re saying, ‘We’re ready to go.’ She’s got a fight next week and I think it’s going to be a quite straightforward process to get that fight contracted.
“That’s the defining fight. But they’re the fights that we’ve wanted for a long time. Serrano is the one. I’d call it 50-50. We’ve never seen Katie in a 50-50.
“I think Katie in her mind thinks she’s got another five, 10 years – and she may have. I see it more like – I don’t even like saying it, because she gets really angry with me, but – three years.
“It could be six, seven, eight fights or whatever that is – but the Serrano one is one that leaves you with not many things to achieve. And they may do it twice. It’ll be such a good fight, you’ll probably end up seeing it twice,” he said.
