On Saturday night, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano will earn $1m apiece at Madison Square Garden. The pioneering Jane Couch and the promoter Eddie Hearn reflect on the rise of female fighters
ddie Hearn and Jane Couch could hardly be more different but they are united this week by a shared disbelief and delight. As we approach the landmark moment on Saturday night when Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano step into the ring at Madison Square Garden in New York to contest the most significant and lucrative fight in the history of women’s boxing, the promoter and the pioneer sound relieved and ecstatic.
For Hearn, meanwhile, “this promotion keeps surprising me. The first surprise was when we sat down with Madison Square Garden and their management said: ‘We have to get this fight.’ That was special. Then they said: ‘We have to put it in the big arena.’ I knew we could go to Hulu [the smaller theatre, seating 5,600 inside the Garden] and sell it out in a day. I’m known for being aggressive but, at the same time, I’m quietly conservative to ensure the right business decisions.
Later that day, with Hearn and Paul, they engaged in a classy face-off at the top of the Empire State Building. “That blew my socks off,” Hearn says, “because, until then, I didn’t know what they were planning to do with the lights on Saturday night. They told me they were lighting up the Empire State and I said: ‘What do you mean?’ They said: ‘We’re lighting up the building with the flags of Ireland and Puerto Rico.’ I like to pretend now that it was my idea.”.
Couch had great courage and she won a version of the world title, but she did not get paid for many of her bouts. When I ask if Barry Hearn had been interested in women’s boxing Couch says: “No, but he co-promoted the bill when Prince Naseem fought Augie Sanchez in Connecticut [in August 2000]. I was on the undercard and Barry and Emanuel Steward [the brilliant American trainer] were having breakfast in Foxwoods Casino. I went: ‘Hiya!’ They’re like: ‘Oh, hi Jane.
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