Taylor and Serrano to headline again at Madison Square Garden. This time, all the fighters are women

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Taylor and Serrano to headline again at Madison Square Garden. This time, all the fighters are women

2025-04-10 10:11 Last Updated At：10:20

NEW YORK (AP) — When Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano fought three years ago at Madison Square Garden, it did more than open a thrilling rivalry between two of boxing's best.

It opened doors for women's boxers that neither could have imagined were ever available.

A professional boxing career wasn't even a consideration for girls when Taylor was growing up in Ireland, let alone one that would lead to one of the most famous venues in sports as the main event — a spot women's boxers had never occupied.

When Taylor (24-1, 6 KOs) and Serrano (47-3-1, 31 KOs) return to Madison Square Garden on July 11 for their third fight, they will again serve as the main event. And this time, women's matches will make up the entire card.

“Like I said the first time around, it was never a dream for me to fight at the Garden because it was never there. Like, I never knew that women could headline the Garden,” Serrano said. "So the first time, it was like a dream I never knew I had.

“But now, for these girls, I’m an inspiration. Me and Katie are an inspiration for fighting and headlining a card at the Garden. Now to be able to headline and have an all-girl card is truly, truly amazing.”

Taylor won the first fight by split decision before a sold-out crowd of 19,187 that was split between her Irish and Serrano's Puerto Rican fans. She won a unanimous decision in the rematch last year, getting the nod by one point on all three judges' cards, as the co-main event to Jake Paul's victory over Mike Tyson at the Dallas Cowboys' stadium.

The trilogy bout, for Taylor's undisputed 140-pound titles, seems certain to be another slugfest. Yet both insist the action on the card that will stream on Netflix starts well before the final fight.

“From start to finish it’s going to be quality after quality after quality,” Taylor said. “This isn’t just a gimmick. This is going to be simply a great night for boxing, and I’m so proud of that.”

They will be preceded in the ring by Alycia Baumgardner defending her super featherweight titles against Spain’s Jennifer Miranda. The card also includes title bouts at super bantamweight between England’s Ellie Scotney and Mexico’s Yamileth “Yeimi” Mercado, and at bantamweight between Dina Thorslund of Denmark and Shurretta Metcalf.

Baumgardner previously had a match in the smaller Hulu Theater inside Madison Square Garden, where the opening press conference for the event was held Wednesday. But Taylor-Serrano I proved that women could fill the big room.

“I’m happy to see women’s sports grow,” Baumgardner said. “I’m happy to see the sport that I love, boxing, grow, and Amanda and Katie have proven more than once why women belong and why we will continue to break barriers and continue building the sport of boxing.”

In all, Most Valuable Promotions said the card will feature six of the top 15 women on the women's pound-for-pound list on Boxrec.com.

“Honestly, we don’t know who is going to get the fight of the night,” Serrano said.

It's hard to imagine it won't be Serrano and Taylor, based on their two all-action bouts already.

Both are boxing trail blazers nearing the end of their careers. The 38-year-old Taylor, who would wear head gear into the gym so she could appear to be a boy because girls weren't allowed to box, helped lead the push to make women's boxing an Olympic sport and won the gold medal the first time it was in London in 2012.

When she goes to the gym now, it's filled with female fighters.

“That’s the proudest legacy I could leave behind,” Taylor said. “Just to inspire the next generation.”

Serrano, 36, a champion in a women's-record seven weight classes who remains the featherweight champion, has already begun what will be her transition to a post-fighting career. MVP's first signee later inked a lifetime contract with the promotional company founded by Paul and Nakisa Bidarian to become its chairwoman of boxing initiatives and will be responsible for identifying, signing and marketing the roster of women's athletes.

But she can't stop fighting yet. Not when all the massive paydays that eluded her for most of her career have started rolling in lately.

And not when there's still a chance to finally notch a victory over Taylor.

“It means a lot more this time being an all-woman card,” Serrano said. "Having the opportunity to fight Katie Taylor once again is amazing. The payday is truly amazing, but to share this card with all these incredible women is the highlight of the night, I think.

“Listen, the opportunity presented itself and I think here is just a great ending to the story — especially my story, when I finally win.”

AP boxing: https://apnews.com/boxing

Nashville school shooter who killed 1 student and himself had brandished a box cutter at school

2025-05-03 06:48 Last Updated At：06:51

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Nashville high school student who fatally shot a classmate before killing himself in January was on probation after threatening a student with a box cutter months earlier, according to juvenile court files obtained through an open records request.

Solomon Henderson, who was 17 at the time, was charged with carrying a weapon on school property with intent and reckless endangerment with a weapon after a confrontation on Oct. 24, 2024.

The victim said she was walking to lunch with a group when she said “hey” to Solomon. When he did not respond, she said “hey” again. Solomon, who is Black, then turned around and told her to get away, using an expletive, and called her the N-word, the victim told police. He pulled a box cutter out of his pocket and exposed the blade before walking to a table in the cafeteria and sitting down.

When an administrator confronted Solomon, “he became upset saying stuff like I'll cut anyone that walks up on him,” according to the court filings. He also said he believed that the victim and her friends were going to jump him. As part of his probation, he was not allowed to possess guns.

Solomon's juvenile record also includes charges from November 2023, when he was 16 years old, for downloading and distributing sexual images of minors. The record does not give any indication of the ages of the minors in the images. In that case, he was released to his parents with strict conditions including no use of social media, a cellphone, the internet, or a computer, with the exception of school work.

Juvenile court records have been unavailable to the public in Tennessee until recently. Citing the Antioch High School shooting and a desire to know more about the shooter's history, Tennessee lawmakers this year passed a bill that allows someone’s juvenile court records to be made public if the person committed a homicide on school grounds and has died.

The records released to The Associated Press on Friday show that Solomon was given judicial diversion after his arrest for brandishing the box cutter. Court documents from the day after the incident indicated he was to have no contact with the victim and that his mother was planning to homeschool him.

It is unclear exactly when he returned to Antioch High School, but on Jan. 22, Solomon shot and killed Josselin Corea Escalante, who was 16 and Hispanic, in the school’s cafeteria before turning the gun on himself. Another student who was grazed by a bullet was treated and released from the hospital the same day.

Police said Henderson fired 10 shots from a 9 mm pistol within 17 seconds of entering the cafeteria. The pistol was loaded with nine rounds when recovered by police. The gun was bought by someone in Arizona in 2022, and it was not reported stolen, police said. The gun’s origins are still under investigation.

Although the name of the victim in the box-cutter incident is redacted from the juvenile records, police have previously said they could not establish a connection between Solomon and the victims in the shooting. They have said the gunfire may have been random.

Not long after the shooting, anti-hate analysts quickly identified dozens of pages believed to have come from Henderson, filled with calls for violence and racist comments, including neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies, expressions of shame that he was Black and praise for specific people who carried out well-known shootings. The writings also include plans for the school shooting, but they do not name Escalante as a target.

Police and the FBI have been investigating two documents totaling more than 300 pages combined that they believe Henderson created.

“It is clear that Henderson was significantly influenced by web-based material,” especially on “non-traditional sites that most would find harmful and objectionable," police said.