Katie Taylor vs Flora Pili: Croke Park Farewell Fight Preview

There are big fight nights, and then there are nights that feel like they belong to the country hosting them. Katie Taylor finally walking out at Croke Park is firmly in the second category.

On Saturday, September 5, Taylor brings her remarkable career back to Dublin for what has been confirmed as her final professional fight. More than 80,000 are expected inside Croke Park, with professional boxing returning to the stadium for the first time since Muhammad Ali fought Alvin Lewis there in 1972. Taylor faces unbeaten French challenger Flora Pili with the undisputed super-lightweight championship on the line, live on DAZN.

The farewell will understandably dominate everything around the event, but there are some properly interesting fights underneath it too. Paddy Donovan meets Tyrone McKenna in an all-Irish welterweight clash, David Allen takes on Thomas Carty at heavyweight and two unbeaten records collide when Taylor Bevan faces Emmet Brennan.

Katie Taylor vs Flora Pili – Main Event

Katie Taylor (25-1-0) against Flora Pili (12-0-0) is obviously about far more than another entry on Taylor’s record. This is the Croke Park fight that seemed destined to happen for years, only it has taken until the very end of her career to finally arrive.

Taylor has already done just about everything there is to do in boxing, but ending her career as undisputed super-lightweight champion in front of a huge Dublin crowd would be about as neat an ending as you could write.

Pili arrives with the most important number on her record still intact: zero defeats. At 12-0-0, she has the opportunity to spoil a night that has effectively been constructed as a national celebration of Taylor’s career. That’s an unusual position for any opponent. Virtually everybody in the stadium will have turned up hoping to see the woman in the opposite corner win.

There is also the actual fight underneath all the emotion. Taylor is 40 now and has been through some gruelling nights during the latter stages of her career. Pili is unbeaten and has nothing to lose by refusing to play her assigned role in the farewell.

That’s what makes it interesting. Taylor is expected to win, the entire occasion points towards Taylor winning, but boxing has never been particularly respectful of scripts.

Paddy Donovan vs Tyrone McKenna

The co-feature could be a very different sort of fight.

Paddy Donovan (15-2-0) meets Tyrone McKenna (25-6-1) at welterweight, and McKenna has enough experience to make this uncomfortable if Donovan gives him the opportunity.

Donovan is looking to reinforce his position near the top of the welterweight picture, while McKenna comes in with 32 professional fights behind him. Donovan has publicly insisted he will not underestimate the Belfast man, which is probably sensible. McKenna has built a career around being willing to take difficult fights and drag opponents into them.

On paper Donovan is the man with more momentum behind him, but McKenna isn’t exactly being brought to Croke Park to quietly make up the numbers. This could get lively.

David Allen vs Thomas Carty

David Allen (27-9-2) against Thomas Carty (11-1-0) is one of those heavyweight fights where trying to predict exactly what will happen feels slightly dangerous.

Allen brings vastly more professional experience, while Carty gets the chance to score a significant win on home soil. Heavyweights don’t need much encouragement to turn a sensible boxing match into something considerably less sensible, and this one has the ingredients to become entertaining fairly quickly.

Other Title Fight

There is another unbeaten-versus-unbeaten contest at super-bantamweight as Joe McGrail (13-0-0) faces Matthew Boreland (7-0-0).

The WBA Continental Gold belt is at stake. McGrail has been building towards bigger fights, but Boreland gets the chance to wreck those plans while protecting his own unbeaten record. Somebody’s zero disappears here, which immediately gives the fight a bit more bite than the average undercard assignment.

Undercard

Taylor Bevan (9-0-0) meets Dublin’s Emmet Brennan (6-0-0) at super-middleweight. Another pair of unbeaten fighters, so neither man has been handed an easy stadium appearance.

Molly McCann (4-0-0) continues her professional boxing career against Sylwia Doligala (8-2-2) at bantamweight. McCann is still early in her boxing career, while Doligala comes in with considerably more professional ring experience.

At middleweight, Paul Ryan (11-2-0) takes on Paddy Gallagher (17-6-1). Gallagher has 24 professional contests behind him, so Ryan won’t be getting much of a settling-in period.

And at super-welterweight, unbeaten Bobbi Flood (3-0-0) faces Jack Swallow (4-13-1), completing the card.

Everything will ultimately lead back to Taylor. Croke Park has been the venue attached to her name for years and, after all the talk about whether it would ever actually happen, she finally gets to walk into the stadium as the headline attraction.

One last fight. One enormous Irish crowd. Now Taylor just has to finish the job.

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