Katie Taylor is ready to make history when she steps into the ring to face Amanda Serrano tonight.
The Bray boxer is defending her world lightweight belts against the Puerto Rican in the biggest female fight of all time.
Katie weighed in at 134.6lbs at Madison Square Garden while Amanda tipped the scales at 133.6lbs as hundreds of Irish fans piled into the venue yesterday.
They were in fine voice and belted out Ole Ole Ole as Katie took to the scales ahead of the defence of her
world titles.
She thanked her fans for travelling and promised to give them a victory to cheer for tonight.
She said: “It’s great to see so many fans here, I’m so grateful. I feel great. I’m ready to step in there and I’m ready to hear those words ‘and still world champion’.”
Amanda’s supporters made plenty of noise too and the atmosphere should be electric by the time the two fighters get into the ring.
The match will be the first time that a female bout has headlined a card at the iconic New York venue – but one Irishman who knows all about fighting there is John Duddy.
The Derry man, 42, who lives in New York, fought nine times at the famous arena, never tasting defeat there.
And John revealed he has been flooded with messages from people ahead of the fight, with others stopping him on the street to get his view on it.
He added: “With Katie Taylor fighting in the Garden, I have been inundated with messages from home. People in the street have been asking me if I’m going to the fight and asking me about my memories there.”
John will be among the 20,000 sellout crowd inside the Midtown Manhattan arena tonight and is expecting an amazing atmosphere.
He said: “The atmosphere on Saturday will be brilliant. It will be fantastic. I think it’s the best stage for probably the biggest occasion for female fighting and rightly so.
“Both of them have earned it. Katie Taylor has been the flagship for female fighting for how long... I mean from the amateurs, the world championships, the Olympics and it just keeps going on and on and on.
“She’s up against it. She’s got a good opponent from here and everyone is undecided about how the fight will go.
“It’s so exciting because we don’t know. I know where our hearts are all leading to. We’re all there roaring and cheering for Katie but this is going to be a tough fight. It’s going to be unreal.
“I’m really looking forward to going there and being a spectator with everybody else and just enjoying the whole experience of it all.
“The fact that we’ve just come through the pandemic and it’s only now that concerts and events are happening again, people are allowed to get outside and crowds are able to get back together again.
“We’re able to go out and cheer somebody on and who better to be leading the charge to get us out of the house again than Katie Taylor. It’s going to be epic.
“There’s no better arena in the world than Madison Square Garden – no more famous arena anyway.
“This is certainly up there with some of the biggest fights in the world.”
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