World champions Katie Taylor and Chantelle Cameron yesterday insisted
that there is no place for smack-talk in the women’s arm of the sport
and that the talking should be done in the ring after a slanging match
between the middleweight champions Claressa Shields and Savannah
Marshall on Sky Sports on Saturday night.
“We are role models, the women’s sport is getting bigger and bigger
and that’s why women should stay away from it because it’s a bit
degrading and sends the sport backwards. A lot of people don’t want to
see it, especially young girls doing it. If I was a parent I wouldn’t
want my daughter seeing their role model talking bad about someone
online,” explained Cameron, the WBC and IBF light-welterweight
champion, yesterday, to Telegraph Women’s Sport.
“I refuse to indulge in it, so if people want to trash talk me, I
ignore it because I just let my fists do the talking. It’s not classy,
it’s tacky,”
“With Savannah and Claressa it’s genuine bad blood. It’s more of a
grudge match, it’s not trash talk, it’s more genuine bad feeling.
Cameron added: “There are ways around it. Let your fighting do the
talking. Show each other respect – you are both fighters – you don’t
need to be disrespectful. If you don’t like each other don’t say bad
things about each other on social media. Save it for the ring, and be
sporting.”
Undisputed lightweight champion Taylor, in London yesterday to
publicise her mammoth clash with seven-weight world champion Amanda
Serrano at Madison Square Garden, New York, on April 30, told The
Daily Telegraph that she refuses to insult opponents. “Not for me. I
have never done it. It doesn’t suit me and that’s why I stay away from
it. I’ve had fight where people have said a few things, but it’s just
water off a duck’s back. They can do what they want. I think because
it’s fight business and the entertainment business at the end of the
day, boxing is full of egos and they are fighters and it is all down
to personality.”
Last week Liam Williams was reprimanded by the British Boxing Board of
Control for saying that he wanted to “kill” opponent Chris Eubank.
Taylor commented: “Sometimes it’s just fight talk and not meant
literally, I have heard Deontay Wilder say similar things but when you
are in fight mode you can say things that you don’t really mean.”
Both Taylor and Serrano, on the second leg of their media tour
following their face-off in the Big Apple last week, insisted that
hostilities would only take place in the ring as they grinned at each
other in a nose to nose face off in The City.
Shannon Courtenay, the former bantamweight world champion, also there
yesterday: “I don’t ever indulge in it, I laugh.”