.png?2.1.1 "Vokash")
1 week ago
There are 2 salient pictures of nan Katie Taylor–Amanda Serrano trilogy: Taylor stepping to nan ringing connected Friday nighttime nether nan green, orangish and achromatic bars of light, her cervix for illustration a character trunk, eyes fixed up pinch stoic grandeur arsenic Even Though I Walk played overhead – and nan image, hours earlier, of Yulihan Luna bloodied and bruised, opinionated beside a ringing woman whose hoisted breasts had been shellacked successful oil, smiling rigidly astatine a camera that wasn’t looking astatine nan fighter.
That’s boxing. That’s besides being a woman.
At Madison Square Garden – half cathedral, half Thunderdome – Katie Taylor approached nan ringing for illustration a martyr. Her arms stayed debased and still, her look stony, nan infinitesimal astatine erstwhile subdued and transcendent. I americium not religious. I was personally rooting for Serrano. But erstwhile I heard that believe euphony and saw Taylor ascend and front betwixt nan ropes, I seemed to spot stars arsenic tears blurred nan lights of nan Garden’s lofted ceiling into a constellation: The Fighter.
A spectacle for illustration this ought to beryllium mawkish. But it isn’t. Because erstwhile nan opus ends, 2 women consequence their legacies, their health, their lives – nevertheless improbable – to consciousness thing for illustration greatness. And dissimilar astir sports, successful boxing, nan consequence is not metaphorical. The threat is useless. It protects nary country. No 1 is conscripted. But it underwrites everything that feels noble astir this violent, anachronistic art. And erstwhile women, historically deemed excessively vulnerable to fight, header an iconic arena that has ne'er earlier granted them that right, nan threat takes connected a caller meaning.
They opportunity styles make fights. They besides make stories. Taylor, nan pridefulness of Ireland, is each monkish subject and point-winning speed. Serrano, nan southpaw from Puerto Rico by measurement of Brooklyn, combines firepower pinch grit. One boxed her measurement done 15 years of amateur pedigree, nan different turned pro astatine 19 and ne'er looked back. Both are successful their mid-30s, some single, some quiet. Sainted recluses pinch 17 world titles betwixt them and a life of sacrifice.
If Taylor is nan tactician, Serrano is nan flamethrower. This polarization is what produced lightning successful nan first 2 fights. But by Friday night, their plans of onslaught had changed. Serrano, seeking alternatives aft 2 contentious decisions that didn’t spell her way, tried to outbox nan boxer. Taylor, burned earlier successful brawls, circled and struck, past slipped away. From information one, it was clear: this was nary longer a firestorm. The conflict bore much resemblance to Mayweather-Pacquiao than Ali-Frazier I. Smart. Tactical. Controlled. For some, disappointing.
But why do we request chaos to judge successful a woman’s greatness?
In different sports, I guidelines for my squad to win, disfigured aliases not. But successful women’s boxing, I confess to a double standard: I want glory and a bully show. I want drama, blood, thing irrefutable. That fearfulness – that if women don’t entertain, nan athletics will vanish – lingers for illustration fume supra nan ring. But Taylor and Serrano were not performing for our approval. They were fighting to win.
This, successful itself, is progress.
True equality successful boxing is not nan correct to inspire. It’s nan correct to beryllium boring. To clinch and move. To conflict safe. To triumph ugly. Taylor-Serrano III wasn’t transcendent because it was thrilling. It was transcendent because it didn’t person to be.
And yet boxing remains a athletics of contradictions. To protect yourself, you must consequence everything. To summation glory, you tribunal death. And still – immoderate would contradict women nan prime to do so.
When Amanda Serrano and much than a twelve elite fighters issued a associated telephone past twelvemonth for 12 three-minute rounds – nan aforesaid arsenic men – they framed it not arsenic a demand, but arsenic a right: “We person earned nan CHOICE,” they said.
The irony is that boxing is 1 of nan only spaces successful Western nine wherever a female tin consequence her life and beryllium compensated. But moreover then, OnlyFans logos hover complete ringing posts and girls successful bikinis parade cards while bloodied fighters hold for judgment. Fans telephone nan athletes they flew crossed oceans to support “autistic lesbians”. Serrano gets 7 figures. Some women connected nan undercard get $1,500 and nary wellness security – turning, much ironic still, to OnlyFans for financial security.
What do we mean erstwhile we talk astir choice?
We conflict for a woman’s correct to person a kid – aliases not. But what astir nan correct to bleed for thing much than self-belief? What astir nan correct to wounded for glory, not survival? Women are told their bodies are sacred, but only successful work of others – children, husbands, God. In boxing, they reclaim them. Not for nurture, but for risk. Not for life, but for thing much defiant. Not Madonna. Not whore. Something else.
Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano did not inquire for sainthood. They asked for a trilogy. They made history, past made it again, past closed nan book.
Now, whether Friday nighttime becomes a watershed aliases a footnote is not up to them.
But for those of america watching, emotion nan hush earlier nan bell, nan flutter of green, orange, reddish and bluish fabric, nan unreserved erstwhile Taylor’s mitt was raised and an Irish emblem drifted mildly down from nan precocious seats – whether Catholic aliases atheist, Irish aliases Puerto Rican, man, woman, aliases thing successful betwixt – these 2 ensured 1 thing:
Watching them clip aft clip aft yet clip again will do thing much than impressment you.
It will resoluteness contradictions – betwixt styles, betwixt images of a fight, betwixt moreover life and decease – into a azygous indelible reckoning.
English (US) · 
Indonesian (ID) ·