For all the time they\u2019ve spent nose to nose, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano sure don\u2019t see eye to eye.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s one rather obvious matter they disagree on: who won their two fights. Two of three official judges said it was Taylor on April 30, 2022, and all three judges said it was Taylor \u2013 by exactly one point \u2013 on November 15, 2024. Taylor understandably agrees with those decisions. Serrano understandably does not.<\/p>\n
But the past is the past. There\u2019s another issue, pertaining to the near future, on which Taylor and Serrano are diametrically opposed.<\/p>\n
These two exceptional female fighters have signed the contracts for a third bout, on July 11 at Madison Square Garden, and they vehemently disagree on what one of the key parameters for this next chapter should be.<\/p>\n
The fight is scheduled, as their first two instant-classic battles were, and as almost all women\u2019s championship bouts are, for 10 two-minute rounds. That\u2019s exactly how Taylor wants it.<\/p>\n
Serrano wants 50 percent more time on the clock. She wants three-minute rounds, the same as the men use.<\/p>\n
At the kick-off press conference at The Theater at MSG last week, they argued about it. Serrano insisted that initially Taylor had agreed to three-minute rounds for fight number three, emphasizing that they \u201cshook on it\u201d but then Taylor changed her mind.<\/p>\n
Taylor claimed in response that she isn\u2019t opposed to fighting three-minute rounds as a general rule, but that she is opposed to letting Serrano have her way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as a matter of principle that the challenger shouldn\u2019t be dictating the terms of the fight,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI am 2-0 here and I\u2019m in the driver\u2019s seat here and that\u2019s only right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Serrano accused Taylor of dodging the potential extra 10 minutes of combat: \u201cYou know that if you have an extra minute that it won\u2019t go your way.\u201d<\/p>\n
And back and forth they went \u2013 presumably to no avail for Serrano. The fight is listed on BoxRec as \u201c10 x 2.\u201d That\u2019s what they\u2019re contracted for. That\u2019s what it will be.<\/p>\n
But what should it be? There are strong cases to be made either way. And it largely divides into two separate debates:<\/p>\n
Which round length will provide the most fulfilling experience for the fans?<\/p>\n
And which round length is better for the health of the fighters?<\/p>\n
Neither question has as obvious an answer as it may seem at first glance.<\/p>\n
The natural inclination is to say that if you loved the 20 minutes of action you got in each Taylor-Serrano fight so far, you\u2019ll love 30 minutes even more. But it\u2019s not that simple. Part of what made Taylor-Serrano I and II so thrilling was the pace.<\/p>\n
No matter how intensely you train, how well you whip yourself into shape, it\u2019s hard to go ovaries to the wall for every second of a three-minute round. But to unload nonstop for two minutes? Well, it\u2019s still a tough ask, but it\u2019s 33.3 percent more do-able.<\/p>\n
The point is, there can be a frantic energy to a two-minute round that is nearly impossible to maintain across multiple three-minute rounds. To reference the classic fight that\u2019s been on every boxing fan\u2019s mind this week, Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns fought the most ferocious three-minute first round ever \u2013 and there was no possible way to sustain it. A round and a half later, their fight was over.<\/p>\n
Serrano has boxed three-minute rounds twice as a pro: over 12 rounds against Danila Ramos in 2023; and against Marilyn Hernandez in 2017, a fight scheduled for 10 but over at the 2:38 mark of the first round.<\/p>\n
At last week\u2019s press conference, Taylor used that recent bout against Ramos to make her case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI [thought] the point of the three-minute rounds was to prove to people that you get more knockouts,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cHow many knockouts did you get in your 12 three-minute rounds? Zero. They end up being boring fights, and it wasn\u2019t a good advertisement for 12 three-minute round fights for women. It was boring, so I don\u2019t think Netflix is too disappointed that this fight will be a 10 two-minute round fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
That argument by Taylor ignores Serrano\u2019s mismatch against Hernandez, a fight in which the round length very specifically opened the door to a first-round KO in a fight that otherwise would have at least gotten into round two. But still, the Irish champion\u2019s point is taken. A Taylor-Serrano fight with three-minute rounds wouldn\u2019t necessarily deliver more entertainment for the fans. There\u2019s a decent probability it would result in more tactical warfare, and more lulls as the ladies save their energy.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s only half the equation when it comes to the fan satisfaction of Taylor-Serrano III. There\u2019s also the matter of settling the score. The first two fights \u2013 despite Taylor posting a 2-0 mark in them \u2013 very much did not achieve that.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no need to relitigate the decisions here. I felt Serrano won both fights, closely but clearly, with the rematch particularly crossing into \u201crobbery\u201d territory for me. But reasonable people disagree with me about both of them.<\/p>\n
Social media polls immediately following the fights suggested a slight majority thought Taylor won the first time, and a slight majority felt Serrano deserved the decision in the rematch. This is not a rubber match, technically, because they aren\u2019t tied 1-1. But the fact they\u2019re doing it a third time tells you that superiority has not been established. It feels like a rubber match, even if Taylor will hold a lead in the series no matter what when the fight is over.<\/p>\n
So, clearly, there\u2019s still a score to be settled here. And though they couldn\u2019t get there over the course of 20 two-minute rounds, it stands to reason there\u2019s a better chance they will if the rounds are three minutes long.<\/p>\n
In each of their previous battles, it was Serrano who hurt Taylor more visibly. The Puerto Rican southpaw rocked her foe in the fifth round of their first bout, and did damage in the opening round of the rematch. Maybe with an extra minute to work with, Serrano would have produced a stoppage on one or both occasions.<\/p>\n
Purely from a standpoint of wanting to see either Serrano or Taylor win definitively in their third fight, three-minute rounds figure to be more telling than two-minute rounds, and the extra minute would seem to increase the chance of a knockout finish.<\/p>\n
But that leads directly into the other element of the debate: Which round length better promotes the safety of the fighters?<\/p>\n
Again, there\u2019s an obvious response and a counter to that obvious response, and it hasn\u2019t been proven which is correct.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a simple formula at the heart of this: More punches taken equals more health risk.<\/p>\n
In an article published in January 2021 in the Association of Ringside Physicians\u2019 \u201cJournal of Combat Sports Medicine,\u201d Dr. Michael Schwartz communicated that formula \u2013 but also communicated uncertainty about its application:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Association of Boxing Commissions (of which I am the Co-Chair of the Medical Committee) agrees with two-minute rounds. The recommendations were based on all the evidence and the potential for more serious injuries with a longer round duration. Nonetheless, without more compelling evidence, it is difficult to emphatically state that the risk between two- and three-minute rounds would absolutely increase a woman\u2019s risk of serious injury. The only answer is to obtain more medical data and the only way to get more useful information is to increase the round duration to three minutes and compare injury rates. With that being said, the first time there is a bad outcome, there will certainly be those critics who will question why the change was made given that some studies already exist which indicated that the injury risk increased with a longer round. This brings in an aspect of liability as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The experts have their speculations and they have their recommendations, but they don\u2019t have \u201ccompelling evidence\u201d of anything.<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s a theory that runs counter to the belief that longer rounds would result in greater damage.<\/p>\n
As has been suggested countless times in boxing history, a quick knockout often takes less of a toll than a prolonged beating (and certainly it spares the winning boxer damage). Ring fatalities unquestionably occur more commonly when a fight is grueling and features sustained punishment than when one boxer flattens the other with a single violent punch.<\/p>\n
If we agree that the chance of a KO is greater with three-minute rounds \u2013 even if, as Taylor pointed out, the Serrano-Ramos fight suggested otherwise \u2013 then three-minute rounds may serve to make a match safer.<\/p>\n
In his article, Dr. Schwartz noted that in mixed martial arts, the length of the rounds is usually the same for the women as it is for the men \u2013 five minutes. \u201cThus far,\u201d Schwartz wrote in 2021, \u201canecdotal evidence suggests no obvious increase in concussion rates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Approaches vary from sport to sport. Whereas male tennis players go best-of-five sets in the grand slam tournaments, their female counterparts play best-of-three. WNBA games feature four 10-minute quarters, while NBA quarters are two minutes longer.<\/p>\n
But a marathon is 26.2 miles regardless of gender. Standard women\u2019s soccer games are 90 minutes, just like men\u2019s matches.<\/p>\n
Claressa Shields has repeatedly pushed to have her fights contested with three-minute rounds \u2013 but not purely for sporting reasons. As she said several years ago, \u201cIf fighting three minutes will get us paid equally to the men, I\u2019m all for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paychecks commensurate with their talents are no longer an issue for Taylor and Serrano, who each reportedly made over $6 million for their second fight and are expected to earn even higher amounts for the third one. Money is not a factor in this debate over whether the rounds should last two minutes or three.<\/p>\n
This debate is about entertainment for the fans and it\u2019s about safety for the fighters. And there are compelling cases on both sides of each of those sub-debates.<\/p>\n
But for me, the deciding factor is the potential for a fight with three-minute rounds to tell us definitively which of these all-time great women\u2019s boxers is in fact greater. Two attempts in the \u201c10 x 2\u201d realm have failed on that front.<\/p>\n
Once again, I find myself narrowly siding with Serrano. And once again, officially, unless something unexpectedly changes in the next 12 weeks, this decision has gone Taylor\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports<\/a> and the author of 2014\u2019s The Moneymaker Effect<\/a>. He can be reached on X<\/a>, BlueSky<\/a>, or LinkedIn<\/a>, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.<\/p>\n