IRVING, Texas — Buried between hyperbolic promotional appearances by a reinvented heavyweight legend and an antagonistic influencer, Amanda Serrano issued quite an understatement following her open workout Tuesday night.
When asked what Netflix subscribers should expect from her and Katie Taylor in what figures to be a riveting rematch, the reserved Serrano sold low when the seven-division champion couldn’t have overpromised. Whereas millions of onlookers assembling beneath this extensive tent have little idea what to expect from 58-year-old Mike Tyson and 27-year-old Jake Paul, we can count on two women in their late 30s delivering another surefire “Fight of the Year” candidate in the 10-round co-feature before Paul and Tyson enter the ring Friday night at AT&T Stadium in nearby Arlington.
“Katie’s a warrior,” Serrano said to a crowd inside Toyota Music Factory. “She might start off boxing, but once I hit her I know she’s going to come to fight. That’s who Katie is. But it’s going to be a war. The fans are going to be the winners come Friday night.”
Ireland’s Taylor, 38, and Brooklyn’s Serrano, 36, produced perhaps the most memorable bout in the history of women’s boxing two and a half years ago. The resilient Taylor withstood Serrano’s onslaught in the fifth round, recovered to land various flush punches of her own and won their spectacular slugfest by split decision in April 2022 at a sold-out Madison Square Garden in New York.
An immediate rematch was warranted, but the two went in different directions, mindful all along that they eventually would go at it again.
Serrano (47-2-1, 31 KOs) is 5-0 against other opponents since falling to Taylor — her only loss since April 2012 — but mostly in featherweight fights, two weight classes below where she and Taylor boxed.
Taylor (23-1, 6 KOs) suffered her first defeat two fights following her narrow win over Serrano, a 10-round majority decision to 140-pound champ Chantelle Cameron. She avenged her lone loss by overcoming Cameron by majority decision in their 10-round rematch nearly a year ago at 3Arena in Dublin.
Taylor, a 2012 Olympic gold medalist and former undisputed lightweight champion, will defend her IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC and WBO junior welterweight crowns versus Serrano in a second fight that will be well worth the wait for these two trailblazing boxers. Fighting on Netflix, with an incomparable subscriber base of almost 283 million in more than 190 countries, and immediately before a heavily publicized spectacle, will afford Taylor and Serrano the broadest audience imaginable for women’s boxing.
If women in boxing are ever to even slightly tighten the gargantuan gap between them and their male counterparts, the way Caitlin Clark intensified interest in women’s college basketball and the WNBA over the past year, Taylor and Serrano have been presented with the requisite platform.
Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder of Paul’s MVP Promotions, targeted Taylor-Serrano 2 as the co-feature for Paul’s Netflix debut when they signed a deal with the streaming monster a little over a year ago.
“From the day we signed to fight [on Netflix],” Bidarian told Uncrowned, “it was a priority to give these two women the biggest platform possible, to really show the world that these two athletes are two of the best, no matter what their gender is. We’ve been very passionate about women’s boxing from the day that we started MVP in August of 2021. And this was our chance to show that in the most massive way.”
Published reports have indicated that Serrano, who is promoted by MVP, will earn approximately $8 million for this rematch, approximately $7 million more than she made for their first fight. Taylor, according to those reports, will make around $6 million.
Multiple sources have informed Uncrowned that their contracts call for Taylor and Serrano to be paid millions less than what has been reported, yet still record purses for female boxers. Regardless, even his harshest critics should applaud Paul for his commitment to supporting women’s boxing in a way many promotional companies have not done.
In addition to Serrano, MVP signed Shadasia Green, a former WBC interim super middleweight champion who was a four-year starting point guard for Division I university Old Dominion before she turned to boxing. Green (14-1, 11 KOs), a Paterson, New Jersey native, is scheduled to face Toronto’s Melinda Watpool (7-0, 2 KOs) for the vacant WBO 168-pound championship on the portion of the Tyson-Paul undercard that will be streamed by the YouTube channels of Netflix Sports and MVP Promotions (5:30 p.m. ET; 2:30 p.m. PT).
This type of exposure is not an opportunity even women’s world champions who’ve been compensated and promoted properly ever expected.
“It’s huge for women’s boxing,” Mikaela Mayer, the WBO welterweight champion, told Uncrowned. “I’ll be there. A lot of people hate Jake Paul. You either love him or hate him. But at the end of the day, he’s bringing a whole new demographic into boxing. And now look at their purses. The purses for Katie and Amanda are insane. … It’s setting the standard, setting the bar higher, and obviously with it being on Netflix, it’s a whole different demographic than being on ESPN+. Everyone around the world can just turn it on. Everyone has Netflix. Who doesn’t have Netflix, right? So, it’s major for women’s boxing.”
Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc, which promotes Mayer, DiBella Entertainment, Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing and Salita Promotions are among the companies that have invested in women’s boxing. As far as women have advanced in boxing since Christy Martin appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in April 1996, Lou DiBella is among those skeptical that providing this expansive platform will adequately address all of the unique issues that have hindered women in this sport.
“Two women stars are being paid the way they deserve to be paid, and they should be applauded,” DiBella, Serrano’s former promoter, told Uncrowned. “And it’s a good fight. I want to see it. But if anyone thinks that’s in any way reflective of the state of women’s boxing, if anything, it’s a problem that people think that. … If you think that Amanda versus Katie Taylor on this card or Amanda’s and Katie Taylor’s careers somehow changed the economic outlook for women that want to get into boxing, hoping to make a living, you’re wrong.
“Everybody wants to be a champion, everybody wants to be a star. But you need to be able to make at least enough money to put food on your table. Here’s the sad part of women’s boxing — 99% of women in the world can’t make enough money boxing to put food on their tables. They have to do other things to put food on their tables, plus boxing. That includes world champions. And the fact that it includes world champions is another indictment of how f*cked up we are as a sport. No, women don’t have to make what men make. But when you have pro boxing for men and you have pro boxing for women, there has to be some level of fairness.”
DiBella most recently promoted a card headlined by a women’s championship match October 23 in The Theater at Madison Square Garden. Japan’s Miyo Yoshida (17-5, 0 KOs) lost her IBF bantamweight title to Dallas’ Shuretta Metcalf (14-4-1, 2 KOs, 1 NC) on points in the 10-round main event of a show streamed by DAZN on a Wednesday night.
There isn’t a platform in boxing, though, that provides consistent spots for female prospects, contenders, or champions to fight regularly. Many women’s weight classes don’t even have enough legitimate contenders to fill out the top 15 rankings for boxing’s four recognized sanctioning organizations.
Claressa Shields (15-0, 3 KOs), a three-division champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, is commonly considered the best woman, pound-for-pound, in boxing. She is also the subject of a major motion picture, “The Fire Inside,” which will premiere in theaters throughout the United States on Christmas Day.
Shields, 29, has earned more than $1 million for a boxing match as well. To DiBella’s point, she has tried mixed martial arts to both challenge herself and make more money.
The outspoken Shields has boxed only twice since her career-defining defeat of amateur rival Savannah Marshall (13-1, 10 KOs) in their middleweight title fight two years ago at O2 Arena in London. Her inactivity has occurred in part because she doesn’t have many appealing opponents to fight in and around her weight class.
Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs), who was Shields’ Olympic teammate in 2016, is realistic regarding the progress of women in her sport.
The Colorado Springs resident participated in the best women’s action fight of 2024, which resulted in a 10-round, unanimous-decision victory over England’s Sandy Ryan on September 27 in The Theater at Madison Square Garden. Rematches with Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs), IBF welterweight champ Natasha Jonas (15-2-1, 9 KOs), and one-time 130-pound rival Alycia Baumgardner (15-1, 7 KOs, 1 NC) are all suitable options for Mayer.
The 34-year-old Mayer understands that she is in a much more profitable position than most women in her industry, yet she maintains an optimistic outlook for her contemporaries and younger women moving up the ranks.
“I think all the women in this era had to believe we’d get to the point that we’re at,” Mayer said. “Not a lot of people believed in us. We were the trailblazers. We had to believe that it was possible. And there is still only a small portion of us that are actually getting paid well. But I never envisioned something like this. First, I never envisioned Mike Tyson fighting again. Then, to be on this stage, with purses like that, I never expected that, no. It’s definitely surpassing what my expectations were.
“I always felt like down the road the next generation would really benefit from all of our hard work. That’s why Amanda Serrano was willing to do three-minute rounds, even though she might not necessarily be getting paid more. It’s just because we had to set the standard, and hopefully the next generation would benefit from the work we’ve put in. But there’s a handful of us that are benefiting now. That’s great to see. Hopefully, it continues. It’s great to see and just shows it’s possible.”
