For the second time in just over two years, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano had a Fight of the Year thriller.
But for the second time, it ended in controversy. Taylor was controversially awarded a unanimous decision as she retained her undisputed super lightweight world championship Friday night. Judges inside the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas all scored it 95-94 in the champ's favor despite Serrano throwing and landing more punches and being the aggressor who had to overcome a nasty gash over her right eye due to a headbutt. (DAZN News had it 95-94 for Serrano).
Serrano started off the bout strongly by walking Taylor down and buckling her knees with a raucous overhand left.
The Puerto Rican boxer continued to swarm and fight forward despite a fourth-round headbutt that opened up a gash over her right eye.
That gash only grew more ghastly in the sixth round when the two clashed heads again due to their cramped-quarters, all-out fighting. Still, Serrano was undeterred and getting the better of most exchanges.
Despite Taylor getting penalized a point for headbutting in the eighth round and Serrano finishing the bout strongly in fiery tradeoffs, judges still awarded the champion with the unanimous decision.
Following the verdict, Serrano and her trainer Jordan Maldonado asserted that Taylor is a dirty fighter who leads with her head and has done so to previous opponents as well.
“[Taylor] kept headbutting me. But we knew that from the very beginning, from the first fight. That’s what they do," Serrano said on Netflix during her post-fight interview. "She did not only my fight, she did it with Chantelle Cameron. Listen, I’m a Boricua. I’m going to die in this ring no matter how many cuts I have in my face.”
Regarding whether the headbutting was intentional, Serrano said: “I think 100 percent, because she does it in every fight. It’s not the first fight.”
Like their first fight, Serrano had Taylor badly hurt but the Irish sensation dug back into the fight.
Still, Serrano came up short on the cards. After outlanding Taylor 324-217 in the rematch and still coming up short, this rivalry will have clouded controversy attached to it for some time to come.