Katie Taylor successfully defends world title, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing

Katie Taylor is still the lightweight champion of the world.

Katie Taylor successfully defended her world title in a fiery fight against game challenger Jessica McCaskill. It was pretty much all Taylor for the first half of the fight. She was first to the punch in most of the exchanges and made her opponent miss repeatedly. She kept McCaskill on the end of her straights and was nowhere to be seen once the counter came her way. The tide began to turn in the second half of the fight as McCaskill began turning into a bit of a brawl. A huge left hand from McCaskill wobbled Taylor midway through the sixth round. Taylor clinched up, remained composed, but the American clearly gained confidence from the power punch landing. In the seventh round, McCaskill came out for blood. She marched forward, bit down on her mouthpiece and let fly with a wild flurry of punches against the ropes. The referee took a point off Taylor for holding after warning her earlier in the fight. McCaskil took a seat midway through the round, but the referee deemed it to be a stumble as opposed to a knockdown. The relentless pace slowed a little in the closing rounds as McCaskil began wearing the effects of her hard work earlier on. Taylor closed out well and her class really showed against her tiring opponent. The Pride of Bray took the final rounds handily enough. The judges scored the fight 97-92, 97-92 and 98-91 in Taylor's favour. After the fight, she told Sky Sports that it was the toughest fight of her career.