Amanda Serrano was seemingly done with boxing late last year, down on the sport’s lack of promoting women’s fights and the poor compensation that came with each bout. After defeating Yamila Reynoso in September to win the vacant WBO women's super lightweight championship as her record sixth division title, the Brooklyn native further entrenched herself into MMA by submitting Erendina Ordonez by rear-naked choke in October during her second-ever bout in the cage.
But for Serrano, whose promoter is Lou DiBella, signing a reported three-fight co-promotional deal with Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn that same month seemingly changed that feeling. Not only does the deal give her exposure on DAZN, the global sports live-streaming platform, but it could also lead to a highly-anticipated mega clash with unified women’s world lightweight champion Katie Taylor, who also fights under the Matchroom banner on DAZN. All of this was too much for Serrano to pass up, and the sweet science reeled her back in.
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“Thanks to the platforms DAZN and Matchroom Boxing, they’re actually giving women a platform to fight on,” Serrano told Sporting News on Wednesday following a press conference for the Demetrius Andrade-Artur Akavov card that she’s a part of Friday night at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden. “They’re paying the women what they deserve, so that’s exciting for me. I was just tired of the way [women’s] boxing was going. Now, it’s going up and even if I could continue to open doors for female fighters and make history, and have girls have someone to look up to, I’m happy to do that. But I don’t have much more in me in boxing.”
Serrano already has a jiu jitsu tournament lined up for next month and says she’ll fight in an MMA bout in April. But although Serrano seems intent on making the full-time switch to MMA, instead of going back and forth between the two sports, the lure of making boxing history to further cement her fighting legacy is something that the 30-year-old simply can’t resist … for now.
Serrano will look to add another historic chapter to what DiBella calls her “Hall of Fame credentials” Friday night, when she faces WBO super flyweight champion Eva Voraberger from Austria. A win will give her a record-setting seventh division title. The only boxer with more division titles? Manny Pacquiao with eight.
To give you an idea of just how driven and possessed Serrano is on making boxing history, the Puerto Rican boxer dropped a whopping six weight classes — from super lightweight to super featherweight — to catch Voraberger at 115 pounds. In boxing, fighters moving up in weight class is commonplace; the opposite, however, doesn’t occur all too often. In fact, DiBella admitted being “scared” for Serrano ahead of this fight due to her free fall in weight.
Serrano called on her MMA coaches to assist with the weight cut. Considering that MMA fighters routinely have to shed more weight than boxers, it was a solid call.
“It has actually been good,” Serrano said about the challenging weight-cutting process. “My MMA coaches came down and they helped me with the weight cut and I feel good. I feel strong. People don’t understand that I’m going to jump on the scale [Thursday] at 115, but I’m not going in the ring at 115 — I’m going back to my natural weight, 130, 135.”
To help with the latter, Serrano has penciled in a date at her favorite burger joint immediately following Thursday’s weigh-in.
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“Jackson Hole on 35 th [Street] and 3rd [Avenue], thank you,” Serrano said laughing during the press conference about her date with that burger. “I’m going to go through her so super fast and that burger just as fast.”
She later told Sporting News: “I would have never thought that I could be the 115 [-pound] champion, but now I’m fighting for it. I’m gonna be a champion. I’m so excited to be at Madison Square Garden, where I won my Golden Gloves in 2008 and 11 years later I’m fighting for seventh division [title] making history in the same place.”
