(JULY 31) UPDATE:  TAYLOR NOT ON CARD

 Following our feature on Thursday we can now confirm that Olympic Gold medallist Katie Taylor WILL appear on the Andy Lee v Billy Joe Saunders undercard when they square off for the WBO Middleweight championship of the world scheduled for Thomond Park in Lee’s  home city of Limerick on 19th September.

The bout will be shown LIVE in the United Kingdom and in Ireland on the Box Nation channel which is carried by Sky, Virgin Media and BT Sport in these countries. The WBO title fight would in itself have been a major attraction but the appearance of Taylor – with the approval of the AIBA – adds considerable additional value to the night’s card, particularly after the obnoxious comments of English challenger Saunders, who had suggested that a woman’s
place was in the bedroom and not in the ring.

A media conference which will be attended both by Andy Lee and Katie Taylor is scheduled for Tuesday 4th August at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. At the time of writing there is no indication that Saunders will appear at that conference so Taylor may well have to wait until 19th August before she has an opportunity of exchanging views with Saunders. She has subsequently accepted his personal apology whilst remaining of the view his remarks were quite unacceptable, albeit he was entitled to his opinion.

As we subsequently reported, following Taylor’s initial intervention and their exchange on Twitter the English fighter did a ‘u-turn’ and offered his ‘sincere apologies’ whilst maintaining that his
comments had been ‘misinterpreted’ and in any case that they had been said ‘as a joke’.

WBAN would hope that all of the boxing associations, wherever they be ‘Amateur’ or Professional should take a tougher stance and ensure that such views will not be tolerated in future whether said for publicity reasons, or as Saunders now maintains said ‘as a joke’ which be believed would be accepted as ‘banter’.

Apart from the Box Nation coverage in UK, it is understood that discussions are taking place for The bout to be screen on PPV in North America and via live streaming since Taylor has a large Irish
following in both the U.S and in Canada. As to who her opponent will be that will have to wait for another day as though rumours abound, the promoters have not yet named an opponent.