Katie Taylor's Top 5 Snubs Amanda Serrano Before Croke Park Finale

Katie Taylor is set to walk out at Croke Park on September 5 for what she's framing as her last dance, bidding to become a three-time undisputed champion when she meets Flora Pili for all four super-lightweight belts. The 40-year-old is doing it in front of a home crowd in Dublin, the sort of send-off most fighters never get to script.

Ahead of it, Taylor sat down with DAZN and rattled off her five best active women in the sport — in ascending order, Mikaela Mayer, Alycia Baumgardner, Ellie Scotney, Gabriela Fundora and Claressa Shields. She left herself off the list, which is polite enough. She also left off Amanda Serrano, which is the part everyone's talking about.

That omission stings a little precisely because of the history. Taylor and Serrano fought three times, trading 30 rounds of genuinely brutal action, and Taylor came out unbeaten across the trilogy after their final chapter in July 2025. You'd think that kind of shared ledger buys a mention. It didn't.

Why Serrano Might Have Been Left Off

The generous reading is timing. Serrano, 37, is closing in on retirement, and Taylor's list was pitched as active operators. But that doesn't quite hold up — Serrano is still very much fighting, and still very much elite. She's a seven-division world champion who's now hunting Christy Martin's all-time women's knockout record of 32. That's not a fighter fading into the background.

Shields at the Top

At the summit of Taylor's list sits Claressa Shields, and most would agree with the placement. Shields is a three-weight undisputed champion, and the only real knock against her is the level of opposition she's faced — a criticism underlined by the fact she's a heavy favourite to see off Kaye Scott this weekend.

For Taylor, the pound-for-pound debate is almost beside the point now. Her legacy is settled: the Serrano wins, the undisputed reigns, the queue of contenders behind her. Beat Pili at Croke Park and she caps it all with a third undisputed title on Irish soil. Leaving Serrano off the list won't change any of that — but it's a curious footnote to a rivalry that defined an era.