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From The 42katie's castle
'This ring-walk, I truly believe it will be one of the greatest moments the sport has ever seen'
With a few tricks up his sleeve for Croke Park, Eddie Hearn is predicting ‘all-out war’ between headliners Katie Taylor and Flora Pili.
EDDIE HEARN’S ONLY half-regret is not doing Croke Park sooner.
Sitting in a tiny, stifling room in The Helix, Dublin, prior to Tuesday’s press conference, the Matchroom promoter scolded himself for not backing Katie Taylor’s dream sooner.
That said, Hearn maintains that the addition of Peter Aiken of Aiken Promotions, as well as Taylor’s two Netflix-broadcast rematches with Amanda Serrano, were contributions worth waiting for as he and Croke Park finally got the deal done.
Hearn says he channelled Taylor herself in his final heave to get the event over the line, refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer. Still, he remains stunned by the speed with which all 80,000 tickets were sold for Saturday’s farewell bout.
“People can sort of deflate your spirit, which is quite unusual for me,” Hearn said. “But they did deflate my spirit a little bit over the years, where it was like, they made me question whether we could do [Croke Park] or if it would actually work.
“And I’m disappointed in myself, actually, that I allowed that to happen, because maybe we could have done it earlier.
“But I probably didn’t have the confidence that I had going into it this time with Peter, with the Serrano 2 and 3 fights… So,
“If Croker would have originally gone, ‘Yes, this is going to be massive’, I would have gone, ‘Wow,’ and we would have done it. But it was like, ‘I don’t know…’
“And it was like, ‘Well, blimey, if they’re not sure, do we really want to be gambling with these costs?’, y’know?
“Listen, they helped out as well,” Hearn added of Peter McKenna and Croke Park. “They were fantastic in the end.
“But I never thought we’d do 40,000 on a pre-sale. How many could we have done? I mean, I know the top-end tickets are always a little bit slower. They all went. But like, I’m talking about the cheaper tickets; [could we have done] another 40, 50, 100 thousand?”
Hearn stressed on several occasions on Tuesday that Saturday’s event — and particularly Taylor’s entrance at GAA headquarters — will be the highlight of his career.
And it will be an event, Hearn insists, complete with musical acts.
The Script and Kingfishr are among the rumoured contenders to perform before the main event between Taylor and Pili, albeit Hearn wouldn’t be drawn on the identity of the artists involved.
He, Peter Aiken, and Brian Peters, however, the latter of whom Hearn jokes has planned the event “as if it was his own wedding”, have a few tricks up their sleeve for the 80,000 spectators in attendance and those who tune in on RTÉ or DAZN.
“This ring-walk, I truly believe it will be one of the greatest moments the sport has ever seen,” Hearn says. “[It's going to be] one of the biggest events Irish sport has ever seen; the biggest female boxing event, obviously, but maybe even sporting event of all time. But
“I just think it’ll be… I think everyone’s gonna go, ‘Wow.’
“There’s a couple of major music acts. I mean, I want to let you all see it unfold on the night, but there’s definitely people everybody’s heard of in this country who will be performing on Saturday night, and a number of different things going on during the night.”
For all of the celebratory mood music, however, Taylor’s promoter is keen to stress that she actually has a fight to win on Saturday night.
Taylor herself was certainly emotional at Tuesday’s top-table press conference, the weight of the occasion apparent as she expressed pride in her country and reflected on her three decades spent in the boxing ring.
And if Hearn’s prediction that Saturday’s fight with French challenger Flora Pili will become a “war” comes to fruition, then he believes Taylor must shift gears into tunnel-focus mode in order to ensure she finishes her career with her hand raised on Jones’ Road.
“The switch has got to go, focus on the fight, because this girl [Pili] is decent,” Hearn said.
“She’s big, she’s 12-0. I’m not saying she’s got the pedigree of Katie Taylor, but Katie’s 40 years old, right? Like she’s fighting a young, strong girl who likes to trade… who, by the way, can become undisputed herself on Saturday.
“I just walked into a BBC interview there and [Taylor] was saying, ‘I need to prepare myself for war here’, because she can’t walk out and then get in the ring and, it’s like, it just passes you by. Because that can happen.
“She’s got to go in there and it will be a war. It will be an-all out war because it’s the only way she knows how to fight. She’s not going to try and box a move because she’ll want to leave it all in the ring.”
Written by Gavan Casey and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.
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