When Women Fight: Taylor v Serrano and the Meaning of Choice in Ring | Boxing

tHere are two notable images of the Katie Taylor – Amanda Serrano trilogy: On Friday night Taylor walked to the ring under light sticks in green, orange and white, like a tree trunk and neck like a tree trunk Even if I walk Play overhead – The image from a few hours ago was Yulihan Luna bleeding and bruised, standing next to a girl with a ring with oil and shells on her chest, carved onto a camera that was not looking at the fighter.

That’s boxing. That’s a woman, too.

In Madison Square Garden – Half the Cathedral, Half the Thunder and Lightning – Katie Taylor Go up to the ring like a martyr. Her arms remained low-key and still acted very stony, immediately surrendered and surpassed. I’m not pious. I personally took root for Serrano. But when I hear worship music and see Taylor rise and bow, I seem to see the stars, as tears blur the lights of the raised ceiling of the garden and become a constellation: the fighter.

Such a spectacle should be despicable. But not. Because when the song ends, two women risk legacy, health, life (no matter how impossible). Unlike most sports, in boxing, risk is not metaphorical. Danger is useless. It does not protect the country. No one was drafted. But it underwritten all the feelings of this violent, outdated art. Danger gives new meanings when a woman historically considered too fragile to fight becomes an iconic stage that never gave her the right iconic stage.

They say style fight. They also make stories. The pride of Ireland is all monks’ discipline and speed of victory. Serrano is Puerto Rico’s southern claw, and Brooklyn combines firepower with gravel. One fisted in the 15-year amateur genealogy, the other turned around at the age of 19 and never looked back. Both were in the mid-30s, both single and quiet. The 17 world titles and lifelong sacrifices between the inhabitants of the saints.

If Taylor is a tactician, Serrano is a flame rack. This polarization is the reason for lightning in the first two battles. But by Friday night, their offensive plan changed. Serrano seeks alternatives, after two controversial decisions that have not been made, trying to beat the boxer. Taylor was burned before the fight, hovered and hit, and then slipped away. From the first round, it was obvious: this was no longer a fire. The battle is similar to Mayweather-Pacquiao than Ali-Frazier I. Smart. Tactical. controlled. For some, it’s disappointing.

But why do we need chaos to believe in women’s greatness?

In other sports, I take root in my team, ugly or not. But in women’s boxing, I admit a double standard: I want glory and a good performance. I want drama, blood, something I can’t understand. This fear—the sport will disappear if women don’t entertain—will linger like smoke above the ring. But Taylor and Serrano did not show it. They are trying to win.

This is progress in itself.

True equality in boxing is not the right to inspire. It’s boring right. Bend over and move. Fight for safety. Win the ugly. Taylor-Serrano III is not beyond because it is exciting. This is beyond, because it doesn’t have to be.

However, boxing remains an ambivalent sport. To protect yourself, you have to take risks. To be glorious, you are going to die. Still- Some people would deny that women choose to do so.

When Amanda Serrano and the twelve elite fighters sent out a 12 three-minute round joint call last year (same as the man), they were not as demand, but as a right: “We have won the choice,” they said.

Ironically, boxing is one of the only spaces in Western society where women can risk their lives and be compensated. But even then, only the flans logo lingers around the ring posts in the bikini parade card and the girl waiting for trial. Fans say their athletes flying over the ocean support “Autistic lesbians.” Serrano got seven numbers. Some women on the undercover received $1,500 without health insurance – more ironic, for financial security, only more ironic.

What do we mean when we talk about choices?

We fight for a woman’s right to have children. But is it just the right to be confident? What about the right to harm the glory rather than survival? Women are told that their bodies are divine, but only serve others – children, husbands, God. In boxing, they took them back. Not for raising, but for risk. Not life, but for something more provocative. Not Madonna. Not a prostitute. other.

Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano did not ask for the saints. They demanded a trilogy. They made history, and then did it again, and then closed the book.

Now it doesn’t matter if Friday night becomes a watershed or a footnote is up to them.

But for those of us who looked at it, feeling the tranquility before the bell, the trembling of the green, orange, red and blue fabric, the rush of the treble of Taylor’s gloves, the Irish flag gently drifted from the upper seat, whether it was a Catholic, atheist, an Irish, an Irish or a Puerto Rican, a man, a man, a woman, a woman, or something between, or a sure thing-the two things:

Time to watch again and again what they will do, not just impress you.

It will resolve contradictions – between styles, between combat images, between even numbers and death – to become an indelible estimate.