Undisputed women’s light welterweight champion Chantelle Cameron (18-0, 8 KOs) stayed unbeaten with a 10 round majority decision win over the previously undefeated Katie Taylor (22-1, 6 KOs) on Saturday night at the 3Arenaa in Dublin, Ireland.
The scores were: 96-94, 96-94, and 95-95. The crowd didn’t seem too happy hearing Cameron announced as the winner because there was a spattering of boos.
Given that age is beginning to creep up on Taylor, she was bound to lose sooner or later.
Taylor, who normally fights at lightweight, didn’t look like she belonged in the ring with the bigger, stronger, and younger Cameron. This was like a duplicate of Taylor’s match against Amanda Serrano, but in this case, she didn’t get lucky with a controversial win.
The fight was close enough to where it could have gone either way, but what impressed the judges was the harder shots from the 32-year-old Cameron.
She consistently landed punches that had more power on them than the weaker shot that Taylor was landing, but it wasn’t a shock that she had the advantage in that area.
Taylor has always lacked power, even during her amateur days. As such, the only way Taylor would win tonight is if she outworked Cameron, and she pretty much did that, but not by a wide enough margin in every round for her to get the victory.
Immediately after the fight, Matchroom Boxing boss Eddie Hearn started talking about wanting to put a rematch together for his fighter, the 36-year-old Taylor, who looked pretty upset in tasting defeat for the first time.
Hearn wants to stage the Cameron-Taylor rematch in Dublin in the Autumn. There’s money to be made for Taylor in a rematch, which is why it makes sense to strike while the iron is hot.
With Hearn insisting on a rematch straight away between Cameron and the conquered Taylor, it means plans for a rematch between Katie and Amanda Serrano need to be shelved for now.
Other results:
Lightweight Jose Felix (40-6-1, 31 KOs) stopped Gary Cully (16-1, 10 KOs) by a third round knockout. Cully was knocked down twice. Finally, Cully’s trainer opted to have the contest halted. The time of the stoppage was at 2:34 of round three.
Junior middleweight JJ Metcalf (25-2, 15 KOs) defeated IBO champion Dennis Hogan (31-5-1, 7 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision. Hogan was hurt in the 12th and was docked a point for losing his gumshield. The judge’s scores were 117-110, 117-110, and 115-112.
Heavyweight prospect Thomas Carty (6-0, 5 KOs) knocked Jay McFarlane (14-8, 5 KOs) down three times en route to scoring third round knockout.
Undefeated middleweight prospect Caoimhin Agyarko (13-0, 7 KOs) dominated Grant Dennis (18-5, 3 KOs), winning a 10 round unanimous decision. The scores were 100-90, 100-90, and 100-90.
Welterweight Paddy Donovan (11-0, 8 KOs) stayed unbeaten with a sixth round knockout over Sam O’Maison (17-5-1, 7 KOs) in round six.