WHEN the time comes for Katie Taylor to reflect on her great career, she may yet conclude that Saturdayโs fight against Amanda Serrano, even as the main event at Madison Square Garden, was less significant than her first.
Winning her first alphabet belt, becoming the world lightweight champion and winning Olympic gold โ Taylor will know the gravity of what preceded each at Dublinโs National Stadium in 2001, on October 31.
A promising 15-year-old fighter, in the first-ever sanctioned womenโs fight in Ireland, Taylor finally demonstrated her vast potential against Alanna Audley, 16, and did so in front of a passionate crowd.
Taylor had been boxing since she was 10, honing her talent but doing so without a platform or fights. Even with the Irish Amateur Boxing Associationโs vote in 1997 to allow womenโs boxing, a very first fight required strong lobbying from her father, the influential Pete Taylor, former kickboxer Mercedes Taaffe Cooper, and ultimately a further four years.
Nicola Adams, another future Olympic champion, was among those who also fought that night against Irish opposition, but it was the fight that unfolded between the counter-punching Taylor and the aggressive Audley that is most commonly celebrated and that has stood the test of time. โIt was so hard to get fights โ it was even hard to get sparring,โ Alanna Nihell, as she is known today, told Boxing News. โIโd had one exhibition with a girl that year. Me and Katie were on first. Iโd been told I was boxing a girl from down south โ it was north versus south. That was it.
โI remember walking into the stadium, Pete and Katie coming up, and I said โWhat about you?โ in my Belfast accent. I remember her looking at me, a bit taken aback, and saying, โWhat about you?โ
โWe had a chat; Katie was very quiet. RTE [Irelandโs national television and radio broadcaster] were there; one of us had to skip; one of us had to shadowbox, and we had to do an interview. There was a lot going on around us. The stadium was absolutely packed [the capacity remains 2,000] โ it was so, so busy.
โCause I was so young I just thrived off it and enjoyed it. I remember getting in the Olympic-sized ring for the first time and I couldnโt believe the size of it. I was buzzing, more than anything.
โI remember warming up โ you can hear the crowds, the kids and people out in the stadium. Thatโs when you get nervous. But you walk out there โ as soon as the bell goes, the nerves go. I remember standing, waiting, taking a deep breath and walking up [to the ring] โ the crowd. Then the ring โ Katie felt so far away from me.
โWhen the bell went, it was quiet. People were really focused. I was a proper tough, strong kid, and brought it to her. I remember us both going for it. Within 30 seconds you heard โThatโs it, Katie!โ, and by the third round everyone was โCome on!โ, and cheering โ theyโd never seen two girls box before. Then her gumshield came out, and it felt like forever.
โI knew straightaway she was skilful. I was trying to walk her down and cut her off โ sheโs always had that movement and speed. She boxed the right fight, stayed away, and didnโt want to get involved.
โMy mum wasnโt too well, so she wasnโt there, so my nanny came down in the minibus with us, and I remember hearing her shouting over everybody. Before they announced the winner, the reception we got โ everyone stood on their feet and clapped.
โI was gutted [to lose] but because of the occasion โ travelling back, everyone was talking about it โ it didnโt feel like a loss. Itโll be a part of history forever.โ
Taylor and Nihell developed not only a mutual respect, but a friendship that blossomed as they spent the coming years sharing gyms, rings and rooms and travelling together boxing for Ireland. Growing up in the loyalist heartlands of Sandy Row, where checkpoints and searches were common and where the bombing of a local post office left a crack in the wall of her family home, Nihell also inherited the same resolve that has taken Taylor to the top of their sport, and one they both needed as they fought so hard to resist the traditions of Irish boxing.
โMe and my cousin went up there [the Sandy Row Boxing Club] and were told โGirls, come back next week, the clubโs busyโ,โ says Nihell, 36, who moved to Belfastโs Eastside Boxing Club aged 17. โI came back the following week and the coach could see I was interested.
โSome clubs wouldnโt have girls in them. Trying to get matched was so hard. My first was supposed to be with a girl but she pulled out so I had to do an exhibition with a boy.
โNobody wanted it. Everybody thought it was a bit of a joke. In the back of my head I had, โIs this going to go somewhere?โ, but everyone around me was so positive about it.
โMy mumโs family grew up watching boxing โ I remember mates and cousins coming round to watch Marco Antonio Barrera beat Naseem [Hamed], so it didnโt seem strange to my family. My stepdad [Ricky] started getting into coaching.
โBut youโd be in the ring and youโd hear โPull her hair!โ, and stupid things like that. [Though] it never bothered me.
โWhen we went to the worlds and the Europeans you could watch the boys, but for years there was nothing about the girls. I remember we went away โ me and Katie had new kit, and the England Girls had kit that was used from the last tournament, from the boys, that wasnโt even washed. But doors [had] started opening.โ
The turning point for Nihell, even as their struggles continued, came not when she fought Taylor, but after that when, still aged 16, she fought in her first international for Ireland in Reykjavik, Iceland, presenting her with the opportunity she had long sought. She and Taylor continued to improve, later both progressing to the quarter-finals of the 2005 world championships in Russia, but it was then that their paths, for so long bound together, started to diverge.
โI was the first girl to represent Ireland internationally,โ says Nihell, a corporal in the British Army, speaking from the barracks in Aldershot where Julius Francis once prepared to fight Mike Tyson. โI stopped my opponent in the first round. The only Iceland Iโd heard of was at the shopping centre.
โThen Katie went away to Norway, and I didnโt go. After she came back, we were always sent away to tournaments together. Weโre really, really good friends, after all these years โ I always message her before she fights. To see all sheโs done for womenโs boxing, and where she is now โ Iโm extremely proud of her. Sheโs still the same person she was all those years ago. I still remember us sneaking out to the vending machines. We had some experiences.
โ[In Russia in 2005] I lost to the Norwegian [Cecilia Braekhus] who ended up winning it. We both came back from that losing, with a wake-up call that we needed to work harder to make it to the top.
โWeโd been in Norway in a training camp [ahead of the 2006 world championships in India], then had two days to get our kit together and fly out. I lived in a wee flat, and I slipped coming down the stairs and busted my ankle. She went away and won the world championships, and obviously I was happy for her, but I was so gutted. I was wounded that I wasnโt there to have my chance.โ
Up to that point Nihell had resisted the growing temptation to enlist in the army, but at a time when there was no guarantee of funding, when she was told male soldiers could box and earn a wage, she signed up and relocated to England.
โI joined the day after my 22nd birthday,โ she says. โI was sickened and annoyed that I didnโt get to go to the championships; my mum and dad were having to help me pay [to live]. I needed to go and do something.
โI was thinking Iโd train, get it paid for, and get a wage. โIโm going to put girlโs boxing in the army โ Iโm going to set the standard for it.โ The girls and boys didnโt train together. It was segregated. The boys trained full-time; we were set up around the corner.
โIt was a very male dominated area I was in. There was always more men than women, but because of my background it was second nature to me โ I always had something to say and always stood up for myself. I got respect for boxing for Ireland. I [also] joined Woking [ABC because women couldnโt train full-time].โ
It was while representing Woking that she won the 63kg category at the Haringey Box Cup, but the more important breakthrough that was required in her new environment didnโt arrive until their three-strong womenโs teamโs success at the 2010 ABAs. A new army facility was soon opened where both sexes trained together; Nihell capitalised by gradually becoming the first female fighter to win the Combined Forces Sportsperson of the Year, winning European and Commonwealth medals with Ireland, and then becoming the first to captain the Armyโs boxing team. โUp until then I was training part-time,โ she says, today a retired fighter but full-time coach of that same team.
โMe and my husband [retired 4-0 professional cruiserweight Chezerae] met on the boxing team in 2012. They say opposites attract, but he was like a male version of me. When he had his first professional fight [against Kent Kauppinen on the undercard of James DeGale-Chris Eubank Jnr in February 2019] I was in his corner as part of the team.
โ[My brother] Lewis [Crocker, a 14-0 professional welterweight] is doing well. Thereโs a lot of hype around Lewis. Heโs in a really great division. Itโs a boxing family. Itโs in our blood, and itโs what I enjoy and love doing.
โEven though Iโve retired, and Chez has retired, itโs nice to see my brother coming on. Weโve got Lewis still flying the flag and doing what he does best.
โIโm pregnant with my second son, so I guarantee theyโll have the same upbringing. Theyโll not be made to box, but itโll always be on the TV. I was brought up with boxing in the household โ and weโll be watching Katie on the 30th.
โI know thereโs not as many female [as male] coaches, so with my experience, and as the world-class athlete I once was, understanding the boxers, I would love to give that back and become a coach. Theyโre crying out for more female coaches with my experience โ Iโll be getting more experience in the army, and looking to be part of a world-class training programme.โ