In a fight that saw Chantelle Cameron defend all of her titles for the first time since becoming undisputed in November of 2022, the Brit also officially took away Katie Taylor’s unbeaten streak that had lasted for nearly seven years. The two fought at the 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland, where Cameron eventually took the win by majority decision on May 20th. The judges’ scorecards involved scores of 95-95, and 96-94 twice, in favor of Chantelle Cameron.
Katie Taylor (22-1, 6 KO’s), who can safely be considered to be the best amateur fighter that Ireland has produced, and certainly one of the best professional fighters to come out of the country, failed to find success in her second move up to Super Lightweight ― after first defeating Christina Linardatou (14-2, 6 KO’s) in 2019 to briefly capture the WBO Super Lightweight title, where she challenged Chantelle Cameron (18-0, 8 KO’s) for all her titles in her home country of Ireland.
The first half of the match saw Chantelle Cameron widely dominate most of the rounds with her ability to pressure Taylor and do damage on the inside. Throughout the first six rounds, it was apparent that Taylor was struggling to deal with Cameron’s power and relentlessness, all while failing to keep the distance so she could box at range.
Cameron effectively closed the space between her and Katie Taylor to not allow the Irishwoman to set herself up with her jabs, and even in the latter half of the fight Taylor only found success by directly confronting Cameron inside the pocket where they were both involved in a slug fest.
Unfortunately, Katie Taylor’s efforts were too late once she started to directly confront Cameron, and though the two exchanged many punches to make their battle evenly-sided and too close to call, it was Chantelle Cameron who ultimately edged out due to her efforts in the first half of the fight.
After ten rounds, Chantelle Cameron was declared the winner by majority decision, culminating in her retaining all her titles at 140 pounds and Katie Taylor suffering the first loss of her career. While both fighters put up a stupendous effort, Chantelle Cameron’s approach and effectiveness of her pressure style of fighting had made it difficult to consider any other winner.
For Chantelle Cameron, it also marks her second victory over an undisputed champion from a different weight class after she defeated Jessica McCaskill (12-3, 5 KO’s) in November of 2022, who is still the undisputed Welterweight champion. Katie Taylor herself is also still the Lightweight undisputed champion, as the fight took place at 140 lbs for Cameron’s titles.
The rest of the fight card was outfitted with multiple Irish fighters who, similar to Katie, would fight in their home country for their first time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an all together great night for Ireland as at least three of Ireland’s most talented fighters caught losses.
Dennis Hogan (31-5-1, 7 KO’s), the IBO Super Welterweight champion, failed to retain his non-major world title when he suffered a UD loss to British opponent James Metcalf (25-2, 15 KO’s). In what was a showcase moment for Metcalf, the Brit won most of the rounds against the Irishman to seal a confident and perhaps statement decision victory.
Elsewhere, Gary Cully (16-1, 10 KO’s) faced Mexican fighter Jose Felix (40-6-1, 31 KO’s) and though Cully was the wide favorite given his unbeaten status, the Irishman shockingly lost early to Felix by a third round TKO, resulting in Cully suffering his first-ever career loss.
Ironically, the rest of the more unknown or lower-ranked Irish fighters seemed to find a lot of success with prospects such as Caoimhin Agyarko (13-0, 7 KO’s) and Paddy Donovan (11-0, 8 KO’s) letting their talents prove their worth with convincing or dominating victories.
The May 20th event was slightly marred by the match between Terri Harper (13-1-1, 6 KO’s) and Cecilia Brækhus being canceled after the latter pulled out due to illness, but overall it contained an exciting card and crowd that would definitely warrant more matches being held in Dublin.
While Dublin has organized boxing events before ― with the last event having occurred just last month in April, this event was arguably one of the biggest spectacles to take place in Dublin for years, with the 3Arena in particular not having hosted a major boxing event since 2014.
