Katie's Last Dance

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

This is 5 Live Boxing.

Steve Bunce (0:04)

It's finally on. It's been a lifelong dream.

It's been in negotiations for four, five, six, seven years, depending on who you believe. Katie Taylor will fight at Croke Park. There will be over 80,000 people there, and it will be on September the 5th. What a fight, what a night, what a legacy, what a farewell. And it's time to sit down with Katie and her manager, and he doesn't often speak, Brian Peters. I'm Steve Bunce, and this is 5 Live Boxing.

Katie, first of all, you've been on a bus and off a bus, and on a bus and off a bus. You've seen a lot of Ireland. How's it been the last, I was going to say, one or two days, but it seems to be about six days.

Katie Taylor (0:51)

How's it been? Yeah, it's obviously been great, but I feel like I'm on a girl band on this party bus for the last few days. It's been a crazy tour, obviously, for the last few days in preparation or just publicizing this fight. I've never ever had to do this before.

So this is obviously different. It's a different event and to be headline on such a huge venue, Croke Park, I could do this every single weekend if I knew I was going to get Croke Park. So this is the price to pay, I guess.

Steve Bunce (1:19)

I have 12 more fights.

Katie Taylor (1:21)

Yeah, exactly.

Steve Bunce (1:22)

I saw a picture about a couple of months ago before it was announced, way before it was announced, with you out shadow boxing on the pitch. Obviously, then you probably knew it was going to be done. What did that feel like, being out on the middle of that pitch, not being introduced to a crowd, but out on the pitch, the shadow box? What was that like?

Katie Taylor (1:41)

Yeah, I obviously didn't know it was going to happen. That was a few months ago, and it wasn't actually going to happen back then. That was just a little event that I was at, and I asked her to go on to the pitch to the shadow box because this would be great for publicizing Croke Park. But just being in the empty stadium in Croke Park, it's very, very surreal that I'm looking around the place. Imagine if I actually had a headline here. Imagine if this was actually a possibility.

Just an amazing venue, an amazing stadium. It's iconic in Ireland, it's obviously, it's part of Irish culture, isn't it? So the headline here is just incredible.

Steve Bunce (2:20)

As you're walking through the, you know, you come to the gates, there's a door, there's a media entrance, whatever entrance you come in, do you get that sense, do you get that feeling? Because I get that when I go into some special venues, like Madison Square Garden. Yeah, it's not the greatest venue in the world. It is the greatest venue.

Katie Taylor (2:34)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean by that.

Steve Bunce (2:36)

So did you get that when you were walking through the gates or doors at Croke Park, that this is a special place?

Katie Taylor (2:41)

Absolutely. And you're looking around the whole stadium and you're like, oh, this is so big and so iconic. And then you're walking through the corridors of Croke Park and you see Mahabalani's poster in there. The last person fought there in 1972

That's it. It's history, isn't it? And just absolutely, like, it gives me goosebumps, honestly. Just thinking of it. And imagine that place packed out. I can't imagine 80,000 people there for...

I hope so. Yeah, I hope so.

Steve Bunce (3:10)

Because some of the packages, I mean, they're a family package. They're sort of like €115 and that's quite amazing.

Katie Taylor (3:16)

It is. It's amazing. And 25% of the tickets are apparently under €40. And then there's standing tickets. There's so many. Yeah, it's very, very affordable. There's alcohol free zones.

Steve Bunce (3:28)

Yeah, that's good.

Katie Taylor (3:29)

Amazing. Yeah. What's that going on back there?

Steve Bunce (3:31)

Someone's making a copy back there. Don't worry about that. We've stolen some space today for a variety of reasons.

Croke Park is about as good as it can get for you. I know it's something that you talked to me about when you left the ring against Serrano first time at Madison Square Garden back in 2022 And you just said, no, it's Croke Park next, which it wasn't, but it is there now. Well, I've got to think in a little bit about some of the other places you've thought in Europeans' worlds or just in just normal fights. Where's the worst place you've ever thought? And so it could be a combination of food, venue, officiating, or just where was the worst place you ever thought?