Chantelle Cameron says she will always go down in history as the only boxer to beat Katie Taylor, as the Irish star prepares to retire after her final fight tonight.
Taylor will attempt to retire from boxing on top tonight, but will always have a defeat by Cameron on her record. Over seven years, against 21 opponents in 22 fights, Taylor had always had her hand raised. There had been razor-thin - and controversial - decisions over Delfine Persoon and Amanda Serrano, but the Irish star had always prevailed. Until she ran into Cameron.
From inspiration to opponent
What was planned as the perfect Dublin homecoming turned into a night to forget. But Cameron's journey to defeating Taylor began long before that evening in 2023. "I always used to look up to her," she said. "I joined the England team quite early in my amateur career and I was told about Katie Taylor."
"I remember watching her in a Lucozade advert in the cinema and I knew I wanted to be in that position. She is someone who inspired me to achieve what she had achieved. Katie is a trailblazer and I could no nothing but look up to her."
Cameron didn't reach the standard Taylor set in the amateur code, winning European silver and bronze. She failed to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio before turning professional later the same year. Cameron won her first world title in her 13th fight and was the undisputed light-welterweight queen four bouts later.
The fight that changed everything
She had long been in line for a shot at Taylor as her mandatory challenger down at lightweight. But it was only when Serrano pulled out of her rematch with Taylor that Cameron was given her chance. "I was the WBC mandatory for Katie for two years, but never got the shot," she said.
"Then I went up to super-lightweight and I become mandatory again, but I only got the Katie fight because she called me out on social media. Serrano had pulled out and Katie obviously wanted her homecoming because she hadn't boxed in Ireland as a professional. She needed an opponent, and obviously fancied the challenge of facing me for the undisputed at 140lb - but I was the wrong opponent."
"I've always wanted to share the ring with a legend. Even now at this point, I want to share the ring with the legends of the sport, so that after my own career is over, I can look back and say what an honour that was to have rounds with these kind of opponents. If you want a padded record or you want to have spent your career boxing people who are not at a good level, you can't be proud of yourself."
"I think you can only be proud of yourself and know that you've achieved the very most if you've boxed legends and you've share the ring with legends. Otherwise, how do you get better? You're not going to get better if you're just beating people up; you're only going to get better if like you're having hard fights and hard competition."
"And Katie was the biggest fight I could have been in and it was my chance to show people I was at the same level. I knew I was up against it. It was Katie's homecoming and she was rightfully the golden girl of boxing. I was brought in as an opponent and nobody expected me to win."
"But I took it on my chin and used it as the petrol to fuel the fire, because it gave me the motivation to beat her and show everyone that they shouldn't ever write me off."
Uphill task in the lion's den
But for all of Cameron's bravado, she knew she faced an uphill task entering the lion's den. In fact, despite her own standing as a four-belt world champion, she did not expect to win, no matter how well she performed.
"I didn't think I was going to win, but my team did," she added. "My team really believed in me, but I was prepared not to get the nod. I went into the lion's den, and let me tell you, I felt it as well. Putting boxing aside, even just dealing with the intensity of being the away fighter in Katie Taylor's hometown, especially being the sort of person I am as well, was hard."
"I'm quite a shy introvert, so I was just proud of that, to be fair, just walking out there and putting on a good performance; to me that was a win in itself. I knew it was a tough ask but that's boxing for you. She was Eddie Hearn's golden girl, I was in Dublin as the away fighter and I was coming up against the top girl."
"Me winning ruins the story because Katie will always have that loss on her record, and it was against me, who you could say was a nobody."
Ultimately, against all the odds, two of the ringside judges scored the fight in Cameron's favour while the third scored the contest even. It was a just reward for Cameron's all-action display.
"I knew she didn't like work rate," she said. "She had had some really gruelling fights where her opponents stuck it on her, and Katie had won, but they were very close decisions, and I know that I was better than those opponents, especially when it comes to work rate."
"I've got a bit of technique and strength and power with it, so when we were preparing, we knew that was going to be the undoing of her. I was expecting her footwork to be a bit better than it was in the first few rounds. We prepared for her footwork to be a nightmare for me, but I was comfortable."
"We had prepared for the best of the best but because of the preparation I had done, it wasn't that much of a shock."
Rematch and trilogy that never was
No sooner had the result been announced than Cameron was obligated to a sequel. The rematch would be held in Dublin again, just six months later, but this time the lion was wounded.
And Cameron said: "To be brutally honest, I didn't want to go back to Dublin. I had already beaten Katie in her homecoming fight; I shouldn't have won, but I did, and then I had to do it all over again, which I knew was an impossible task. So I asked for it to be at lightweight, for Katie's belts, so at least there was a new challenge for me. That would have given me the chance to become a two-weight undisputed world champion."
"I also asked for three-minute rounds but Katie wouldn't do that, and I asked for it in Abu Dhabi because that's where I had become undisputed in the first place. Imagine you had run a marathon; it was gruelling, you had the worst blisters ever, your feet were in bits, and then you you're told a couple of months later you have to do it again."
"You're not going to want to do it at the same place with everything else the same because you think, 'What's the point?'. So I wasn't keen on the rematch, but it was in the contract, so I had to go and do it all again, but it wasn't the same, and I didn't have the same mindset."
Cameron appeared to knock Taylor down in the opening round of their second fight, but the referee ruled it a slip. The home fighter - now the challenger - made the rematch physical with Cameron cut after a clash of heads. From then on Taylor dominated to avenge her only professional defeat.
And Cameron reflected: "I didn't want to be there and that affected me for the whole week."
"I'm not making any excuses; I lost a close fight. But there was a lot of controversy, from knocking her down in the first round to the headbutt and the holding... but I lost the fight and I can take it on the chin now."
"Katie boxed brilliantly. She had the right tactics; they weren't pleasing because there was a lot of grabbing and it was a messy fight, but they worked, so credit to her for that."
With the score tied, a trilogy fight seemed the obvious next move for both fighters. But a deal could not be struck and the rivalry will remain forever unresolved.
"After the second fight, I was getting my head stitched up from where I was headbutted, and there was a video of Katie's speech and she said the trilogy was going to happen next," Cameron added. "And we did negotiate a third fight and I agreed to everything, including going back to Dublin."
"I even accepted less money than for the first two fights because I wanted the trilogy that much. Eddie was in my changing room offering me ridiculous money but when it came to the negotiations, it was actually less than the first two fights. But it wasn't about money, it was about legacy, and knowing that it would be the first-ever proper women's trilogy fight."
"It was about finishing what we had started and about seeing who the better fighter was. So I agreed to everything; it was to be in Dublin, the date was set, money was set, and then I got a phone call saying Katie wanted to fight her mandatory challenger instead, so I never got the trilogy, and she hasn't spoken about it since. It was done and dusted."
Respect for Taylor's swan song
Cameron bounced back immediately and went on to become world champion in a second weight division. But she accepted she would never be in the conversation for Taylor's Croke Park swan song. "It was never going to happen," she admitted. "People kept asking me about Croke Park, and I just laughed because there was no conversation."
"I wish Katie all the best and I hope she has a fantastic night; she deserves her swan song she's always wanted Croke Park, but it's not a homecoming. She did have a homecoming, and it didn't go her way, but her biggest goal was to fight at Croke Park, and she's getting it, and I hope it's an amazing night, I hope it's a beautiful night."
"But they didn't want me for the trilogy, because it's too much of a risk. Her final fight is not going to be a risky one. I think her team knows too well that they're giving her a dance partner who Katie is going to look great against. I'm glad to see her retire so that she can go and enjoy life now."
"She has nothing left to prove; she's in her late 30s, she's got the money, she's got the fame, she's been a two-weight undisputed world champion and it's a good time for her to bow out. I'm glad to see it as well, because she deserves to be walking off into paradise and enjoying what she's done and enjoying all of her success."
"I'm the only one who's ever beaten Katie Taylor at the moment, and I think I'll always have that to my name. I think I'm always going to go down in history as the only one to beat Katie, so I think that in itself is a quite an accomplishment for me."
