KATIE TAYLOR AND Amanda Serrano -- ESPN's No. 2 and No. 3-ranked women's pound-for-pound fighters -- will collide in a highly anticipated trilogy fight, headlining an all-women's boxing card at New York's Madison Square Garden on Friday. The card will be streamed live on Netflix and it's another opportunity for women's boxing to step into the mainstream as the sport pursues equal exposure and pay to its male counterpart.
"The goal for this all-women's card is to put the world on notice that women's boxing is just as entertaining as men's and can be just as exciting, if not more," Jake Paul, whose company Most Valuable Promotions is presenting Friday's event, told ESPN. "This is the moment where multiple women on the card can garner a bigger audience and become superstars. They have the opportunity to be recognized by audiences outside of the normal boxing crowd and expand the fan base, just like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese did for the WNBA."
All-women's boxing cards have taken place previously, dating back to 1979 in Los Angeles and women have headlined a pay-per-view as recently as 2021 when Claressa Shields defeated Marie-Eve Dicaire to become the undisputed junior middleweight champion, but remain a novelty, nonetheless. It wasn't until Taylor and Serrano stepped into the ring to face each other for the first time at MSG in April 2022 that women's boxing appeared to garner the mainstream attention and money the sport has been looking for.
Women's boxing has had its fair share of stars, including Christy Martin in the 1990s and Laila Ali in the 2000s. However, for a sport built on legendary rivalries, Martin and Ali didn't have someone opposite them who matched their popularity and skill. It can be argued that the lack of a high-profile rivalry in women's boxing stifled the sport's growth.
"I think you have to have that dance partner so everybody can see how great a dancer you are," Martin told ESPN.
Martin has often been credited for legitimizing women's boxing as a fixture of promoter Don King's cards in the late 1990s and early 2000s, fighting on Mike Tyson's undercard multiple times. Martin was among the first class of women inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020.
"Every sport is built on rivalries," Martin said. A highly anticipated clash with Lucia Rijker, who was widely regarded as the best pound-for-pound women's boxer in the world, was scheduled to take place in 2005 but fell apart when Rijker ruptured her Achilles tendon. "If my fight with Lucia Rijker happened, maybe it would have elevated women's boxing as a whole."
Taylor and Serrano represent the first true rivalry between championship-caliber fighters in women's boxing. Their historic initial encounter was the first time two women headlined a boxing card in the 140-plus-year history of Madison Square Garden. Taylor narrowly won the first meeting, and both women reportedly received seven-figure payouts for selling out the "Mecca of Boxing."
"Rivalries make everything more exciting," Serrano told ESPN. "Katie and I are only rivals in the ring, but we're cool with each other outside of it. When we are in the ring, we don't hate each other. We're just trying to prove who the best fighter in the world is and put on a great show. She has brought out the best in me, and I have in her."
The rematch was strategically booked as the co-main event to Jake Paul's heavyweight showdown with Mike Tyson last November, which Taylor won by controversial decision in ESPN's 2024 women's fight of the year. It became the most watched women's sporting event in U.S. history, averaging 74 million live viewers globally on Netflix. By comparison, the first fight in 2022 had a global audience of 1.5 million viewers on DAZN.
But how much of that was due to fan interest in the women versus viewers getting settled in for Paul-Tyson?
Regardless of their reasons for tuning in, fans were treated to an instant classic.
"A lot of credit goes to Serrano and Taylor," Paul said. "Any fighter can fight on my undercard, but if they don't make a statement or a name for themselves, then all of those fans won't necessarily care. It's a credit to both of them for being warriors and putting on all-star performances that people want to tune in and watch. That is arguably the most important piece of the puzzle."
And now, thanks to the groundwork laid by Taylor and Serrano, women's boxing will get a stage all to itself and the opportunity to thrust the sport into the limelight.
"This isn't a marketing gimmick," Taylor told ESPN. "I think people are going to be shocked by what they see, and there will be some new household names that the people will be talking about after July 11. This is going to be a huge moment for women's boxing.
"The fights seem to be getting bigger and bigger and this is a huge moment not just for myself but I think for women's sport, to be headlining a huge show at Madison Square Garden, an all-female card. This is monumental."
THE FIGHT CARD will feature 17 world titles contested across five fights, with four of ESPN's top 10 women's pound-for-pound fighters (Taylor, Serrano, Alycia Baumgardner and Chantelle Cameron) in action. All of the ingredients are there for a thrilling night of fights and the opportunity to create new stars.
"I look at this event as a monumental moment that creates a movement because we've been able to put together such an unbelievable collection of top pound-for-pound fighters, which you've never seen done in boxing, male or female, before," Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, told ESPN.
The jury's still out on whether Friday's card will be enough to see women inch closer to equal footing with men in the sport.
"It takes many watershed moments to make a reservoir," legendary boxing commentator Jim Lampley told ESPN. Best known as the announcer for HBO Boxing, Lampley's final call for the network came on Dec. 8, 2018, when he was on the desk for then-undisputed women's welterweight champion Cecilia Braekhus' title defense against Aleksandra Lopes.
"This can be a watershed moment without bringing us to a culminating point where we say that women's boxing has totally made it," Lampley said. "It's always going to be an uphill climb, but we get a little closer when two star fighters come together."
Lampley raised concerns that fans may still not be on board with the idea of women's boxing.
"I think there are still a number of people, both male and female, who are not comfortable watching women fight," Lampley said. "Whether that's wrong or inappropriate or unfair to women, it doesn't really matter."
Although she is a pioneer for bringing women's boxing into the mainstream, Martin isn't completely enamored by the idea of an all-women's event, but for different reasons.
"As a fighter, I just wanted to fit in," Martin said, who prefers an inclusive fight card versus one that separates men and women, and believes that the talent pool in women's boxing is still too shallow for an all-women's card to become the new norm. "This event is going to have a microscope on it, and if everybody doesn't put on a performance like Taylor vs. Serrano is expected to, and everybody can't, it's going to be scrutinized."
Women's boxing has long had a stronger foothold with audiences overseas than in the U.S. Matchroom Boxing's Eddie Hearn told ESPN that he had considered staging an all-women's boxing event in 2020 and approached Taylor with the idea for an all-women's card on International Women's Day (March 8), but Taylor was adamant that she wanted to share the stage with men.
"The reason we haven't done an all-women's boxing card is because I don't think it really works, if I'm honest," Hearn, who has promoted Taylor for the entirety of her professional career, said. "For some reason, [an all-women's fight card] kind of deletes a lot of the potential customers that go to traditional boxing. When you look at all women's boxing cards, the audience in the arena is completely different. There is a huge amount of women and young girls in the audience, which I think is fantastic by the way, but a lot of traditional fight fans don't want it.
"I just feel that Taylor-Serrano with a normal card of men and women would've sold out immediately."
As of Wednesday, the event is trending toward a sellout. "The event will achieve double the ticket sales revenue of the first Taylor-Serrano event at Madison Square Garden," Mitch Glaser, MVP head of finance and strategy, told ESPN.
BOTH HEARN AND Martin are cautiously optimistic about what the future holds following Taylor-Serrano 3. And with Taylor (39 years old) and Serrano (36 years old) inching closer to retirement, the future is just as imperative as the present.
"We need a star to emerge from this card that Jake Paul will continue to promote," Martin said. "Taylor and Serrano have performed every time they have had the opportunity. Whoever the next star is, will need to leave people in awe. We need to see who is going to carry women's boxing to the next level."
Dmitry Salita, who has guided the successful professional career of two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-division undisputed champion Claressa Shields, said Most Valuable Promotions must look beyond its current crop of champions for the next wave of stars.
"The next step in Jake Paul's evolution [as a promoter] is the ability to build fighters from the ground up," Salita told ESPN. "He has been able to raise the profile of Amanda Serrano, who was already one of the best in the world. But can he do it with a fighter out of the amateurs? I hope that he does because I'm a supporter of what he's doing for women's boxing.
"The more power players that are in the sport, the better it is for the sport and the fighters. Because when there's competition, when there's someone else to go to, it makes people work harder. It makes us, the promoters, be innovative and creative and deliver the best opportunities for boxing fans."
Paul and MVP plan to continue signing women and providing opportunities for them to compete. Meanwhile, Claressa Shields, ESPN's No. 1 pound-for-pound women's boxer, continues to shine as one of the biggest and best in women's boxing. But for all that she has accomplished in pushing women's boxing to new heights as arguably the most accomplished boxer, male or female, she is in desperate need of a dance partner to truly challenge her.
Paul and Shields have been contentious in the media, but if they can resolve their differences and join forces, it can help women's boxing reach new heights.
"Claressa is a skilled fighter and an amazing promoter who knows how to drive engagement and deserves to be promoted the right way outside of her own promotions," Bidarian said. "We are 100% always open to working with Clarissa Shields because we think it would be for the betterment of the sport."
For his part, Salita said he is open to doing business with Paul, as long as it's "fair and correct."
"My motto is to work with everybody because our job as promoters is to give the best opportunities to fighters and the best fights for the fans," Salita said. "I have absolutely no problem working with MVP with not only Claressa, but our other women boxers."
When asked if we will see more all-women's boxing events, Paul said that "maybe once or twice a year" is a realistic goal. However, the most important thing is to keep the women's boxers active and visible.
"Stars are nothing without infrastructure," MVP's head of boxing, Michael Leanardi, told ESPN. "What we're trying to do at MVP is have the women fight on more regular schedules because there is no better way to build a fan base than to be visible. These women need to be seen more than once a year in a boxing ring."
Before the biggest rivalry in women's boxing history reaches its conclusion, the bright lights at MSG will be on the new era of women's boxers as the sport searches for the next Taylor and Serrano.
"[They know] this is their opportunity to perform," Paul said. "They are on Netflix, fighting on the biggest women's boxing card ever, and can all come out of it as superstars with electric performances and be the next ones to get a $5 million payday."