It was after 13 seconds when you could tell Conor Benn was bang up against it against Ryan Garcia.

Benn dipped to his right and Garcia cracked him with a left hook that might not have changed the narrative of their encounter, but it revealed the plot.

Twenty-one seconds after the first bell, the same shot landed and it became glaringly obvious what the final scene would look like.

Benn was made to look cumbersome, having to over-reach with his right hand, and while he attempted to bomb forwards, as is his custom, he was raked by faster shots and couldn’t match Garcia’s quick feet.

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Katie Taylor made her final ringwalk and as I looked into the crowd behind me, tears rolled down cheeks from men and women.

Just because we predicted this would be emotional, we didn’t know quite how remarkable it was going to be.

Nothing but Katie mattered and the date will be seared into Irish folklore: September 5, 2026. It was special, and that is not a cliché or hyperbole.

An hour or so before her final walk to the ring, Matchroom’s Jamie Ward interviewed Katie Taylor in the dressing room and the images were shown on the big screens, there was the first ear-splitting scream of the night from the legions of fans.

“All of the hard work has been done, I’ll just go out there and enjoy myself,” she said, and the rapture in the audience picked up once more.

Promoter Eddie Hearn, then interviewed on the stage where all the fighters but Taylor made their entrance at the historic Croke Park, talked of Taylor “taking the roof off this place”, which was not lost on me being seated so high up in the sky in the media box that I could clearly see there was no roof.

“We’ve got one more job to do, that’s win this fight tonight…. She’s nervous, she’s about to walk out for one final time, she’s warmed up for one final time.”

“This is a moment that we shall savour forever. Let’s raise the roof for a true Irish girl.”

*

While the ending of Paddy Donovan’s fight with Tyrone McKenna was anti-climactic, Donovan had been well in control, and he’d decked the Belfastman early on.

Donovan split open McKenna’s eye with a counter left and the doctor almost immediately stopped it with less than 30 seconds left in the fourth.

Donovan had received a superb ovation both before and after the fight.

In the contest prior to the Limerick man’s win, Southampton’s Taylor Bevan had been too sharp for Emmet Brennan, flooring the Irishman five times for the win of his career to date.

The fifth, final and hardest knockdown was unnecessary as there was no way back for Brennan by that point.

Still, it was before the heavyweight bout between Dave Allen and Thomas Carty that the atmosphere started to buzz, with well-known hits and Irish folk songs bringing the crowd toward an inevitable climax that would peak with the ringwalk and the heroine of the piece having her hand raised.

It’s not often Dave Allen is booed when he’s announced, but there was understandably a warm ovation for Dublin’s own Carty.

It was getting cold by this point. Various media members had scurried off to grab small bowls of chips and even a late coffee, given the heavyweights started at 8.50pm.

By 8.53pm Carty was flat on his back on the floor outside the ring and no one seemed to really know what had happened.

Allen was left alone inside the ropes, Carty was given oxygen and the crowd initially hummed with curiosity before big-screen replays showed Allen had clubbed Carty on the back of the head and the Irishman had then lurched headfirst out of the ring and all the way down to the floor.

That fight was all over in 82 seconds on the recommendation of the ringside doctor.

It looked as though Allen wanted to fight on but, once he was able, Carty trudged back to the locker rooms and the Croke Park party continued for everyone else, but not for Allen and there was, of course, no party for Carty.

*

I thought the fans were here for the boxing but even through the main support bouts there were rows of empty seats and, as I went out to the concourse between fights, thousands of fans, many wearing Katie Taylor T-shirts, scarves and hats, queued for food, drinks and Katie Taylor merchandise. They were here for one thing.

There was a long pause and then the crowd’s real co-main event started when Westlife came on and unexpectedly brought the audience to its feet. Boxing on X might have mocked it, but there were no audible complaints from the 83,000 who lit up Croke Park with their phone lights in their thousands to You Raise Me Up. It was one of the most un-boxing moments I had seen. But this was not about boxing. This was about paying homage – and not to the famous Irish group. It was about Katie Taylor and how she had raised up a nation. It wasn’t about a fight. It was about saying a heartfelt thank you.

The band performed two songs and then the lights cut, the concert was over and fight night was upon us. The fact that one contest had been cut short and another had ended bizarrely after less than two minutes meant nothing.

The “where-were-you moment” was about to start.

Taylor’s opponent Flora Pili, from France, came out and soon after her ringwalk music was drowned out by the “Ole Ole” chants of the Irish. Instead of watching the Frenchwoman’s journey to the ring, many craned their necks to the corner of the stadium that had all night been reserved for only Taylor. The Irish star’s walk from the inner sanctum of the stadium was greeted by another roar and when Pili’s music stopped, the sense of anticipation was palpable. The stadium was bathed in neon emerald green, and then Taylor’s music hit – All Hail King Jesus – and she made her slow, measured final walk to the ring with fireworks and pyro.

*

I can’t lie, I felt it even though I had not expected to. But this was not for me, of course, or my colleagues on press row. I wanted to see what it meant to the Irish people and I nudged Tom Ivers, my friend and colleague next to me, and pointed to the row of men and women behind us who were weeping. Two women were crying uncontrollably, dabbing their eyes in their tricolour Katie flags while the men looked towards the ring through watery eyes. Another man, his wife and their daughter, held hands, transfixed by what they were witnessing. They were seemingly trying not to crack but nonetheless hooked on the emotion of it.

These weren’t VIPs. These were the people of Ireland who’d won the virtual ticket lottery and were quickest on the phonelines to get in.

We were a long way from the centre circle, but they were there, walking with Katie. This was their “I was there” moment and they were sharing it with the nation’s idol.

As for the fight, the chorus was interchangeable between “Ole Ole” and “There’s Only One Katie Taylor.”

It was a celebration, not a fight.

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LONDON – I could touch the emotion in London’s O2 Arena last night. I could feel the stakes. I heard the screech of anticipation. I could see the expectation. I could also see the dread.

Filip Hrgovic’s nearest and dearest sat in the row behind me as I cradled this laptop like a small child, making sure it didn’t tumble from my lap each time one of them stood up to roar at their countrymen.

While the men behind me never faltered in their impassioned encouragement, there were two ladies in the row, both wearing white.

One was a stoic figure, elegant, graceful, transfixed, and that was Hrgovic’s wife.

The other, also in white and with more make-up, watched every moment as though she was a second or two from complete hyperventilation.

The face of panic never shifted from her face. She held her trembling hands up either side of her face constantly as they involuntarily twitched and each time Moses Itauma landed with anything meaningful, she shrieked. I’ve never seen someone so terribly invested in a fight that they clearly couldn’t bear to watch but could not bring themselves to miss.

Even after the fight, there was no sign of relief that Hrgovic had sprung such a considerable upset. Like a roadside victim after a car crash, she stood beside the ring with her face showing the scars of trauma, frozen, locked in relief, unable to smile, celebrate, rejoice. The nine mostly one-way rounds took more of a toll on her central nervous system than it did Hrgovic’s, and that’s saying something, because Hrgovic took some almighty stick.

*

After the fight, in the bowels of the O2 Arena, as I zigzagged my way through the crowds, I saw Charles Itauma, one of Moses’ brothers.

“How is he?” I asked.

“Exhausted, he was just exhausted,” Charles sighed.

There was not much else to say, really.

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The streets of Brooklyn buzzed, not long after the ambulance carrying Xander Zayas passed through them to take the courageous Puerto Rican to hospital.

We were told Zayas was unable to attend the post-fight press conference purely as a precautionary measure and that he was okay. He’d spoken well in the ring after delving about as deeply into his soul as he could have to fend off the flames of Philadelphian Jaron “Boots” Ennis.

For as much as the talk was of what Ennis had done and what he had shown here at the cacophonous and simply electrifying Barclays Center, the story, too, was halved with as much discussion fizzing in the post-fight elation about Zayas and the grit and resolve he had demonstrated.

It might have been “Boots’” coming-out night and Zayas might have reluctantly been separated from his WBO and WBA 154lbs titles, leaving the venue he’d entered to an unforgettable blast of Puerto Rican pride and passion on a stretcher, but his prizefighting value had rocketed.

You don’t do what the 23-year-old did and in any way have your valour or abilities diminished.

What he would have lost, perhaps, is a chunk of his future health, and perhaps so, too, did Ennis.

“It’s part of the business,” said the young former champion in the ring. “You live, you learn, you come back again. I’m happy with my performance. It was not what I was expecting, not what I trained for, but I knew I had one of the best in front of me. ... He hurt me in the first round and my legs went away for a couple of rounds. ... Then I hurt him, but he got me again. You learn and you come back and get better.”

For while Zayas was down three times in all, the fight swung away from the still-undefeated 29-year-old, Ennis (his birthday was the day before the fight), when he was rocked by a third-round right hand that threatened to change the course of the fight and Matchroom’s immediate US plans.

A penny for Eddie Hearn’s thoughts, as Ennis reeled around the ring, attempted holding to keep a swarming and utterly galvanised Zayas at bay.

That said, Ennis never stopped throwing back. He hurled punches with bad intentions and, frankly, reckless abandon in one of the most memorable rounds I’ve seen in 25 years covering the sport.

We have heard about the Philly wars for years, and last night Ennis wasn’t just in one, he was in the type of battle that was made famous through some of the sport’s most exciting warriors. He was his own version of Matthew Saad Muhammad against Yaqui Lopez, of Joe Frazier against Muhammad Ali, and of Bennie Briscoe against Marvin Hagler.

Claim hyperbole all you want, but this isn’t the 1970s, this is the sport now, and beforehand fans were salivating over the prospect of two unbeaten stars clashing in or near their primes, and certainly not past them, and with two belts on the line.

And when you surveyed the often-toxic landscape of boxing social media the next morning, it was near enough unanimous that those watching, whether they were fortunate enough to be in the Barclays or not, had been left utterly exhilarated by what they had experienced.

It was not a fight of two halves but a spin dryer of emotion and momentum swings. After two rounds, it seemed “Boots” had it in the bag. Sure, the fight was still watchable but Zayas was dropped in the opener – caught out by a short left after he’d fired out a combination – he struggled when Ennis was in either stance, and was half-a-step behind the challenger.

Despite his obvious bravado, there were no signs that – at 23-0 (13 KOs) – Zayas had what was needed to turn the fight around.

Ennis had never been hurt. Hell, he’d never been out of third gear.

In round three, however, Ennis had to do something we didn’t think he’d have to.

Ennis had to survive. The right hand that caused him to almost unravel jolted his head back and travelled down to his boots. And rather than going through the gears, his tyres started to spin in desperation. He threw shots back, he moved, he tried to hold. He fought desperately both attempting to win and trying not to lose at the same time.

The first right had landed early in the round. Only around 20 seconds later, another buckled Ennis at the knees. But Zayas was clever, pushing Ennis off as he attempted to smother, and the Puerto Rican mixed in hooks and body shots.

The crowd by this point, was deafening. Many of them were standing, regardless of where their seats were positioned. Ennis, in retaliation, buried shots into Zayas’ midriff and launched unsubtle straight lefts from the bleachers trying to keep the marauding champion at bay. And when one such left crashed against Zayas, the Puerto Rican finally slowed and Ennis roared back to seize control of the session.

It was breathless to watch, lord knows what it was like in there. The arena was absolute bedlam. The energy was like nothing I can recall in years.

Astonishingly, Ennis regained some kind of momentum in the next and in the fifth, a spiteful short right hook with Ennis fighting as a southpaw dropped Zayas again, only harder this time. In the first, the champion had softly spiralled to the deck. This time, he crashed onto the seat of his pants and jarringly somehow had been punched across the ring.

Yet, when he made it back to his feet, still he fought back. Like a honey badger with an attitude problem, he was frantically trying to cling onto his unbeaten record, his titles and his senses, but all three were slipping away from him.

The sixth was understandably a little less chaotic and perhaps that was “Boots” setting the table for the finale. Because when he finally and irreparably breached the Zayas’ defences, raking him with a right and two lefts, Zayas – moving with his back to the ropes to find a safe haven – gave ground and sunk forlornly to the canvas. His fighting spirit remained but the corner knew it was time. They know he’s 23 years old. Fighters have been wrecked for going on in situations like that and, with the three knockdowns, he was miles behind on the cards. In fact, he was down 59-53 for all three judges and had only been given the third – across the board. That didn’t tell the story of the fight, but the fighters’ reactions immediately afterward did.

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Ennis celebrated, understandably, knowing he’d had to show some of the ingredients we’d only heard he’d had to exhibit behind closed doors. He is now a unified two-weight world champion. But Zayas, also understandably, celebrated, too. He was rightly proud and his immediate response was to walk around the ring and salute the fans who had cheered him so vociferously, who had possibly made that third-round surge and what followed possible.

Of course, Ennis was due to face down questions about what might come next but it wasn’t that kind of night. It was about being there. It was about experiencing it; feeling the excitement, the energy, the adrenaline, and savouring it. It was about enjoying an excellent prizefight, and giving them both their due, one for his heart, talent, power and skills, and another for his determination, grit and maniacal resolve.

Both “Boots” and his father, “Bozy,” admitted to laziness causing the third-round fireworks with Ennis not doing what was required to keep Zayas at bay.

“Xander’s a great fighter,” Ennis said. “I hope he’s okay. Whether he stays at 154 or moves up, I think he’ll be champion again…. I got to go back and watch it. I’ll probably give myself probably like a C. C-plus. I’m way better than that.”

We will see about that. If that is not the zenith, some wild nights lie ahead.

It didn’t need talk of Ortiz, Crawford, Fundora, or anything else to take the story on. It was a standalone thriller, one that will stand the test of time, and one of those that those will always be able to say with a smile to envious friends, “I was there.”

The mile or so walk back to the hotel at around 2am was brisk. It felt like a storm had burst over New York and you were walking through the humid haze that followed, amazed, still, by the electricity in the event you’d witnessed.

It was the type of fight where, when you lie in your bed and try to get to sleep, you can still feel the pulse in your neck and your heart racing.

It was the type of fight where, when you know you need to leave for the airport in three hours, it’s okay, because you’d seen something special and something you’ll never forget.

(Photos: Cris Esqueda Matchroom Boxing)

Let me know your thoughts on the fight, the occasion and what’s next.

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More news and notes from New York below

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Apparently, it was all Jason Statham’s idea.

He is the reason why, at about 12.30am this morning, I scrambled to rewrite the intro for my post-fight recap and scrawled: “The world heavyweight champion is 2-0, 37 years old, and has had one boxing match in 12 years having spent most of his adult life as a kickboxer.”

It seemed as though Rico Verhoeven was on the brink of a seismic shock – until he wasn’t.

Nailed by a right uppercut, the courageous challenger was dropped by the usually brilliant but surprisingly out-of-sorts Oleksandr Usyk.

He made it back to his feet but lost his mouthpiece.

The fight was allowed to go on but as Usyk piled in to finish his opponent, referee Mark Lyson made the call to stop the fight.

It was madness. The whole thing. From start to finish, from cradle to grave.

Lyson can’t really be blamed. He had a split second and made his call.

It was brave. It was probably wrong. It was instinctive. He gets no replay. He can’t listen back to hear the bell among the din of the crowd. He had no stop clock telling him there was one second left in the 11^th round.

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He was also a damn sight closer to Rico than you or I, and for all those clamouring for a 12th round, many are saying: “He [Rico] would have been stopped in the next.”

Well, that doesn’t do him much good. It just gives us the definitive answers we can say we are without today.

But there is something that is definitive, and that is we need to be, collectively, over these crossover fights.

It was Statham who apparently planted the idea of Usyk-Rico into the mind of Saudi boxing powerbroker Turki Alalshikh. He likely didn’t need much encouragement, given his first big event in the Middle East saw Tyson Fury fight Francis Ngannou.

So we’ve seen these curiosities before. In fact, it’s been on an annoying loop for a while.

The only boxing winner out of it ever is the fighter who actually irons out his opponent; anything else is abject failure.

Points, a decision, a crisis — anything less than annihilation is not acceptable. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Anthony Joshua smashing Francis Ngannou is what we’d like to think would or should happen every time, only it hasn’t and doesn’t.

In part, that desire is born out of the respect those in the industry have for their sport and the people in it. But it also comes from an ingrained snobbery from those who find it hard to understand that plenty of boxers have started fighting late and been success stories — and that’s not to mention those, like Rico, who have fought before.

But it was ridiculous that it was sanctioned for the world heavyweight title and that the WBC saw fit to approve Verhoeven.

With the sanctioning bodies battling for relevance — the same way a dinosaur might have pulled up a chair to enjoy the sight of a giant rock flying at the earth — the WBC decided that Verhoeven’s one boxing match against a guy who was 0-5 qualified him for a shot.

Let’s not even talk about the fighters he leapt over in the queue.

(Pictures by Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)

Now, as the dust settles, you are faced with where do you rank Verhoeven, who did better against Usyk than Daniel Dubois did twice?

He was level on two scorecards and a head on the third. I had him winning, but did think the end was nigh.

Still, what Jason Statham wants, Jason Statham gets.

He is, by the way, a Hollywood actor and a former professional diver.

But, alas, he also has the ear of influential people and he will doubtless be thrilled that his brainchild is today the talk of the sporting world.

He was all in. Others, myself included, were far more reluctant.

But as the rounds went by, you couldn’t deny what you were seeing: a real, even fight. Usyk never looked panicked but he looked constantly uncertain.

There were ironic cheers with Rico’s early punches landed as those ringside celebrated what they deemed to be beginner’s luck. He cracked Usyk with an early right hand to the face and a bigger shot with the same hand to the stomach.

Usyk had previously solved the riddles before him each and every time. He listened to the tunes, figured out the cadence, and then made his opponent dance to his beat.

He was the matrix others couldn’t fathom. Instead, last night, it was Usyk who struggled to adjust as Verhoeven bulled forward, swamping him with his size, pressure and power.

Verhoeven, the much bigger man, changed the pace of his attack, worked the body, was busy with his jab — which he often doubled up — maintained a crab-like defence, and often submerged Usyk with his unexpected volume, work rate and tenacity.

Verhoeven’s naïve recklessness and enthusiasm gave him his best chance but, ultimately, it’s what cost him so dearly.

Trainer Peter Fury sensed his man was spent when the end came.

Rightly proud of his fighter, Fury said afterwards: “He got tired in there. Experience let him down a bit. He didn’t know how to pace the fight that well. He didn’t know when to grab hold, get a second wind, go again — he was constantly on him [Usyk] and he basically burned himself out.”

As with other Statham blockbusters, there could be a sequel.

There were tasteless scenes in the ring following the contest when, after Usyk had referenced the struggles many in Ukraine face, including his own family, he was presented with Agit Kabayel as his next opponent. Then a Verhoeven rematch was mooted, and Usyk kind of rolled his eyes at having to beat another man twice to please everyone.

The desire to push what’s next completely destroyed the moment to assess what had just happened.

The problem is, when you script things to the letter there is no margin for improv. The script is the script. And the script said that Kabayel should hop into the ring and call out Usyk, but there was a room to read and no one did.

That script, such as it was, had been torn up rounds earlier. It had been made gloriously redundant and should have been abandoned then — like these crossover fights should have been scrapped by now. This is not Hollywood. This is live sport.

And it should have been the 27-0 Kabayel in there last night, not the queue-jumping Dutchman, because of a celebrity’s whim.

Sure, Verhoeven showed he belonged, but that doesn’t make it right.

Still, so controversial was the ending – and there were so many talking points – that at least, finally, people were no longer talking about the one thing they’d insisted on discussing all week: the Pyramids. Turned out a fight is a fight regardless of where you stage it.

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