Katie Taylor's Career and 5 Most Memorable Fights

Katie Taylor has won 25 professional fights, so narrowing her career down to five is not easy. But the most important victories are not necessarily the nights she looked best. They are the fights that changed what was possible next, for Taylor and, in several cases, for women’s boxing itself.

She fights for the last time on Saturday against Flora Pili at Croke Park in Dublin, in front of a sold-out crowd expected to exceed 80,000. It is the home-stadium farewell she spent years asking for.

Katie Taylor Career Key Facts

Anahi Esther Sanchez, October 28, 2017

This is where the championship half of the career starts. Less than a year into her professional life, in only her seventh fight, Taylor beat Sanchez by unanimous decision in Cardiff to claim the WBA lightweight title. All three judges had it 99-90. Sanchez had already lost the belt on the scales after missing the lightweight limit, so only Taylor could win it.

Taylor left at 7-0. Everything after this, the unifications, the undisputed reigns, the superfights, begins here. Before this night she was a celebrated Olympic champion trying professional boxing. After it she was a professional world champion.

Delfine Persoon I, June 1, 2019

Taylor walked into Madison Square Garden holding the WBA, IBF and WBO lightweight titles. Persoon brought the WBC belt. Taylor won a majority decision, 96-94, 96-94 and 95-95, and became undisputed lightweight champion at 14-0.

It was not clean, and it should not be presented as clean. Persoon pressured her for 10 rounds, finished strongly, and left the ring convinced she had won. A significant number of ringside observers agreed with her. Taylor beat Persoon more convincingly in the 2020 rematch, but the first fight is the one that matters historically, because that is the night the four belts came together.

Her hardest fight to that point produced her biggest achievement to that point. That is usually how it works.

Christina Linardatou, November 2, 2019

Five months after becoming undisputed at 135, Taylor moved up to 140 and beat Linardatou by unanimous decision, 96-94, 97-93 and 97-93, for the WBO super lightweight title. She left at 15-0.

The reason this belongs ahead of several bigger names is what it proved. Taylor had just conquered a division and immediately went looking for another one. That instinct is the through-line of the entire career, and it is what eventually produced undisputed status in a second weight class.

Amanda Serrano I, April 30, 2022

Taylor and Serrano became the first women to headline a boxing event at Madison Square Garden. Taylor won a split decision, 97-93 and 96-93 on two cards, with the third going 96-94 to Serrano, and kept the undisputed lightweight championship at 21-0.

It was not merely significant. It was an outstanding fight. Serrano badly hurt Taylor in the middle rounds and had her close to the canvas in the fifth, and Taylor rallied through the back half and survived a furious final round. The Ring named it Event of the Year.

What it established went beyond either fighter. Elite women’s boxing could headline the Garden, command major purses and carry an event commercially rather than appear on someone else’s card. This was the night women’s boxing stopped asking for the main event and became it.

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Chantelle Cameron II, November 25, 2023

Six months earlier, at the same venue, Cameron had taken a majority decision and handed Taylor the first loss of her professional career. It happened on Taylor’s long-awaited homecoming, in her first professional fight in Ireland, in her first attempt to become undisputed at 140. Cameron ruined all three at once.

Taylor ran it back immediately and won a majority decision, 98-92, 96-94 and 95-95, to become undisputed super lightweight champion at 23-1. The win made her undisputed in a second weight class, joining Claressa Shields as the only women to do it.

She entered an underdog for the first time in her career.

This ranks first not because Cameron is a larger historical figure than Serrano, but because of what Taylor had to come back from. She had already proven she could make history. This was the night she proved she could recover when the story went wrong.

The Fight That Nearly Made It

Serrano III, on July 11, 2025, has a real argument. Taylor won by majority decision, 97-93, 97-93 and 95-95, to retain the undisputed super lightweight titles and sweep the trilogy. It headlined the first all-women professional boxing card at Madison Square Garden, with a record 17 titles contested across five world title fights.

It stayed off the list for one reason. The five above tell the whole career in order: first world title, first undisputed championship, second division, the sport’s biggest stage, and redemption. Letting Serrano occupy two or three of five spots would tell a rivalry instead.

Katie Taylor Career Timeline

What She Said in 2023

Standing in the 3Arena ring on the night she avenged the only loss of her career, Taylor was asked what came next. She had already said the six months waiting for the rematch were the longest of her life, and that everyone had just seen the real her.

Then she named the venue. “Let’s get the trilogy at Croke Park.” The trilogy never happened. Croke Park did.