Katie Taylor has never shied from a challenge. Many fighters, given the opportunity to fight in their home town and country for the first time as a pro, might have taken a soft touch. Taylor didn’t — back in May, in Dublin, she jumped up a division to face Chantelle Cameron, the undisputed champion there. It didn’t work out then, but it was a good fight and a big event, so this weekend they did it again.
In the first, Cameron got her success behind a piston-like jab, pushing Taylor back and dominating her physically when they got in close. To get her revenge, the local hero was going to have to find ways to negate the jab and avoid the physical fight where possible. There was a little bit of luck along the way as a knockdown that really should have been called was given as a slip. But she managed it, taking home a majority decision of 95-95, 98-92, 96-94, scores that were arguably quite generous to Cameron aside from that blown knockdown call.
Let’s take a look at how she did it.
The Breakdown: How Katie Taylor beat Chantelle Cameron
There were three things Katie Taylor focused on improving here: her own jab, cleaning up her movement, and negating Cameron’s physical advantage when the got in close. That last part has caused a bit of controversy of its own, which we’ll get to, but let’s talk about the rest first.
It’s actually not really possible to separate the feet from the jab, as the success of one fed into the other. Katie Taylor is obviously smaller than Cameron, and although faster even at 37, not so much so that she could speed-blitz her with no other refinements. So to get the jab working her feet and timing had to be on point — but then once the jab started working it was key to keeping her safe as she moved, in a neat circle of technical layering.
Basically, from the very first minutes of the fight, Taylor dropped off, but carefully. She didn’t back herself into the ropes and (the knockdown aside, admittedly) she managed to avoid the awkward off-balancing that she’s sometimes been guilty of in recent years. She judged the distance very well, pausing momentarily just as Cameron stepped into her range, jabbing her, then angling off before the return jab came.
That led Cameron to feeling herself rushed quite quickly. Even with what should have been the success of the knockdown, she was finding herself further from her target than she had in the first fight, and started reaching a bit with power shots and even the jab, to try to get something home. That left her fractionally off-balance — not a lot, not dangerously in terms of being hurt, but it gave Taylor the moments to start her own power-punch work.
That came in the form of flurries. That’s pretty typical of Taylor, stepping in to deliver sharp bunches of shots before disengaging. She hadn’t really been able to make that work in the first fight though, denied the time and space to do so. Here, it was much more of a success, and she had the clear advantage in the amount of power punches getting home. And, a good portion of the time, she was able to disengage safely too, angling off and getting back to range.
When she didn’t manage that was when the last part of the plan showed, and here there was some controversy, with Cameron’s corner feeling a bit hard done by. Simply enough, the entirety of the plan was to grab hold of both of Cameron’s arms and wait for the ref to break them. It didn’t happen as often as some fans online might have you believe — it didn’t kill the action of the fight, really — but it was definitely a plan and definitely disruptive of Cameron’s attempts to work in close.
Whether one calls that veteran savvy or cheating is up to the observer. Certainly the ref could have warned her — but it wasn’t happening that often that there was that much opportunity to do so, nor was she deliberately taking the fight there just to clinch. On the other hand, it was possible that it wasn’t happening that often because, having seen its effect, Cameron was hesitant to get into a range where she knew she was going to have no chance to work. Whatever the truth, it gave Taylor a safezone to go to that she didn’t have in the first fight.
This wasn’t a fight of wild swings of momentum, so the patterns outlined here continued pretty much throughout all ten rounds. That makes it sound like Cameron wasn’t in it — that’s not true, she was competitive for the whole fight, especially with her own jab still scoring regularly. It didn’t dominate the fight like it did in the first, but it was still a significant punch, and working around it wasn’t easy for Taylor.
The Scoring: Was the result of Katie Taylor vs. Chantelle Cameron fair?
Well… yes. There was some notion that if the knockdown had been scored as it should the result would have gone Cameron’s way — but actually the two judges with cards close enough where that could have happened scored that round for Cameron anyway. The one-point shift from 10-9 to 10-8 would have seen Taylor win a split decision instead of a majority decision, victorious all the same.
The Future: What’s next for Katie Taylor and Chantelle Cameron?
Well, there’s a good chance it’s each other again. They stand 1-1, and both fights have been entertaining affairs in front of raucous crowds. There was some talk of making the third a stadium fight, in the 82,000 seat Croke Park. Whether that’s possible isn’t entirely certain, but it’d be a sight to see.
It’s hard to say who they fight if not each other. Boxing’s women in general does still have the issue that there’s quite a big gulf between the top stars and the rest, but it’s particularly obvious at this 140-lb weight class, with no obvious challenger beyond the two of them visible at the moment.
For Cameron, a move up might be feasible, as welterweight looks pretty strong. She’d give up some of her size advantage, but she’s still a good technical boxer, she’d be confident she can compete with the likes of Jessica McCaskill, Natasha Jonas or Mikaela Meyer.
Katie Taylor is probably too small for that, so for her it’s a case of looking back down. But really the only convincing opponent at 135lbs would be Caroline Dubois — a fight which would involve some cross-promotion between Matchroom/DAZN and Boxxer/Sky Sports. Possible, but not that likely.
The other option, of course, would be retirement. No one would begrudge her it — she’s fought the best opponents she could get consistently throughout her career, achieved great success at both amateur and pro levels, and been probably the main factor in women’s boxing becoming a star attraction. The rubber match to settle this rivalry one way or the other would be great to see, but either way, when Katie Taylor eventually does hang up the gloves she can do it with pride.
