By Gus "Walk-Off" Fields
DUBLIN — Katie Taylor got the ending fighters dream about and rarely get. On Saturday night, under the lights of Croke Park, the Irish boxing great closed out her career with a victory over Flora Pili, walking away a three-time undisputed world champion in front of a crowd that came to say goodbye and left having watched her say it on her own terms.
Fairytale endings in boxing are rare, BBC Sport noted, but Taylor got hers: a "dream ending to a dream career," as one writeup put it, capped in the same country, in front of the same fans, who watched a teenager become one of the sport's defining figures.
The reaction poured in fast. Some of the biggest names in women's boxing paid tribute to Taylor after the fight, according to BBC Sport, with peers across the sport calling her one of the best to ever do it. BBC Sport's own retrospective gallery — "tears, blood & triumph" — traced a career that ran through Olympic gold, undisputed titles in multiple weight classes, and a rise that helped drag women's boxing into the mainstream.
There was no upset, no late scare, no asterisk. Just a champion closing the book at Croke Park, the grandest stage Irish sport has to offer, with the result she wanted and a nation behind her.
What comes next for Taylor — promotional work, coaching, a quiet retirement — wasn't detailed in Saturday's coverage. For now, the story is simpler than that: one of Ireland's greatest athletes got to pick the day, pick the building, and pick the outcome. Not many get that.
Final score's the last thing that mattered here.
— Compiled from reporting by BBC Sport.
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