When Katie Taylor first started boxing, she had to do it under the guise of the name Kay due to the fact that boxing was illegal for women in Ireland. That’s right, Taylor had to pretend to be a boy in order to follow her dream. Incredibly, two decades after the days when the Irish boxer had to duck and dive the authorities in order to get into the ring, Taylor headlined the biggest night in women’s boxing when she fought Amanda Serrano at Madison Square Garden in April of this year.

New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of

Simply put, it was a night that changed women’s boxing forever. Indeed, as many as 1.5 million people bought the fight from pay-per-view provider DAZN while fans from over 170 countries tuned in to witness history being made. Now, five months after that fight, the landscape of women’s boxing is unrecognizable with the world’s most celebrated promoters eagerly trying to sign the top talent in the sport. In addition to that, the globe’s biggest sporting networks now report on women’s boxing with unprecedented enthusiasm while bookmakers don’t leave any stone unturned as they offer markers on every eventuality.  In short, a revolution that covers a host of different sectors has taken place in women’s boxing that few ever thought would happen.

Fans and broadcasters just can't get enough.

Another startling indicator of this insatiable interest in women’s boxing can be seen in the upcoming grudge match between   Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall. It should be stressed that in times gone by, the sporting world wouldn’t have batted an eyelid about a fight between two female boxers which first occurred in 2012. However, the reality now is that this fight can’t come soon enough as Claressa Shields tries to avenge the only loss of her career after Savannah Marshall beat her a decade ago when the duo squared up as amateurs. Indeed, this narrative has gripped the world of boxing which essentially means that this fight is set to break records when the pair go head to head at the 02 Arena in London in mid-October.
Tellingly, the fight will be aired by several networks: ESPN, Sky, FITE TV and DAZN, which again illustrates just how far women’s boxing has come recently with the globe’s most established broadcasters lining up to acquire the official rights for the fight.
Needless to say, the strides that women’s boxing has taken are truly remarkable which begs the question, what does the future hold after a year where history has been made?  The answer is that it is impossible to say with any certainty given the astounding exponential growth that the sport has enjoyed over the last 12 months.

However, you could say that the future of women’s boxing is whatever people want it to be when you consider that this is a discipline that sports fans can’t get enough of. On top of that, the TV ratings show that it is able to draw in millions of viewers so, in reality, why should we put any restrictions on where this sport can go when it has already smashed the glass ceiling and is heading toward previously unthinkable heights?

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