With Serrano unwilling to agree is Taylor-Persoon rematch next?

With her proposed rescheduled fight with seven division World Champion Amanda Serrano now apparently off the table, it looks like unbeaten Undisputed Lightweight Women’s champ, Katie Taylor, has moved on to another familiar opponent for an August rematch.

This, according to Matchroom boxing promoter, Eddie Hearn, who told IFL TV this weekend that after several weeks of trying to get Serrano to agree on the second rescheduled date of August 22nd to fight Taylor, they’ve apparently decided to move on and have Taylor fight Delphine Persoon.

First, as we wrote, tensions boiled over last Sunday, when Serrano took to social media to blast Hearn for trying to pressure her into accepting the second rescheduled date and fight without fans at the Matchroom Boxing headquarters in Essex, England.

Serrano and her promoter, Lou Dibella, have now publicly outed Hearn with private message and email documentation, as having demanded that Serrano take at least a 10% pay cut for the second rescheduled date with Taylor being held without fans.

Hearn has now spun that by making his final contract offer to Serrano of a full purse, and then publicizing that in his responses to Serrano on social media Sunday night. But, Serrano and Dibella continue to maintain that the second reschedule date and without fans is something they had to agree to and they’ve chosen not to do so.

It was also revealed in the social media “war of typed words” that Serrano wanted to participate in a Telemundo TV sports / athleticism reality contestant show earlier in the Spring, where the first prize was $200,000.

But, that Hearn and Matchroom sent the show and its producers a “cease and desist” letter for her involvement in the show, because of what they say is the binding contract to fight Taylor for the same time frame.

As that soap opera continues to play out, Matchroom and Taylor have apparently moved on to the possible rematch with Persoon.

“I like the Delfine Persoon fight,” Eddie Hearn told IFL TV. “We’ve made three offers to Delfine Persoon. It’s close, it’s close.

“Katie wants to take that fight because there is doubt in some people’s mind that she won that fight. So now, it’s a fight like all these fights in the world that deserves sold-out crowds in an arena. But we don’t live in that world anymore.

If you’re a fighter, if you care about legacy and achievement, you have to adapt to this environment. You have to go for it.”

Taylor, who just turned 34 last week, is the Irish-born Gold Medalist from the 2012 London Olympics, and is unbeaten (15-0) as a professional,

She’s now the Undisputed Women’s Lightweight champion after having beaten Persoon at Madison Square Garden in a close battle by majority decision in June of 2019 on the undercard of the Andy Ruiz shocking upset of Anthony Joshua.

The German Persoon is 35 years old, with a 44-2  record and had held the WBC Women’s Lightweight Championship for five years until Taylor defeated her.

The Taylor-Persoon proposed fight is to be the co-feature on the final of the four series of Matchroom Boxing “Fight Camp” cards that will take place in August at their HQ.

The main event on August 22nd is English Heavyweight, Dillian Whyte, battling former IBF Heavyweight champ, Russian Alexander Povetkin in an elimination fight for a potential shot at the WBC championship early next year.