As reported on Wednesday, undisputed lightweight champion Katie Taylor will take a second crack at undisputed junior welterweight champion Chantelle Cameron on November 25. In May, Cameron traveled to Dublin, handing Taylor her first defeat in another of a string of excellent women’s matches in the past few years.

Cameron will travel again as Taylor seeks to force this rivalry to a third set.

It’s not the way the year was supposed to go. 

2023 was supposed to feature Taylor in a rematch with featherweight champion Amanda Serrano after their outstanding Madison Square Garden superfight in 2022. The two were brought together to announce their plans in the ring after Serrano completed her unification of the featherweight class with a decision over Erika Cruz in February.

It didn’t take a month for best laid plans to go awry. At the end of February, it was announced that an injury to Serrano would postpone the Taylor sequel. Taylor opted to move up and challenge Cameron and the rest is history.

The 34-year old Serrano (44-2-1, 30 KO) has moved on and will face 41-year old Heather Hardy (24-2, 4 KO) this Saturday (ESPN PPV, 8 PM EST) on the Jake Paul-Nate Diaz undercard. It is the second meeting between the two with Serrano winning a lopsided unanimous decision in 2019.

Few should expect Hardy to have much chance this weekend but Serrano’s best option evaporated when Cameron defeated Taylor in May. 

After Hardy, what about the next best option?

Serrano wasn’t the only fighter to unify a division on that February card in the Garden Theatre. 

29-year old Alycia Baumgardner (15-1, 7 KO) followed up her career victory over Mikaela Mayer in a 2022 unification bout by defeating Elham Mekhaled for the vacant WBA belt at 130 pounds. That win secured a perfect collection of straps for the junior lightweight queen and she’s already added a defense of the crown.   

As we prepare for round two of a clash between undisputed champions in November, a Serrano win this weekend could, and should, open the door for another. 

Serrano-Baumgardner would match another pair of undisputed champions in a fresh fight that fits perfectly into what has been unification fever on both the men’s and women’s sides of the sport. Once all the straps are unified, seeing singular, true champions face each other is the next evolution.

For Serrano, who has won belts in every weight class from junior bantamweight to junior featherweight, it would be a chance to add a second complete crown to her collection. For Baumgardner, the clash would build on the high-profile fight with Mayer in a way no other available fight could.

The winner would further be perfectly positioned to further challenge Taylor regardless of how Cameron-Taylor II goes, feeding a loop of great matchmaking as women’s boxing continues in its golden era.     

Serrano-Baumgardner makes all the sense in the world.

Cliff’s Notes…

With Alvarez-Charlo coming on the men’s side, a trio of all undisputed clashes would make for quite a fall slate in boxing…A mea culpa is in order. Two pieces last week featured the error that Paul Fuji was the last undisputed junior welterweight champion. That is, as Twitter/X user Matt O’Brien reminded, of course false because the last undisputed junior welterweight champion (prior to the WBO being seen as mandatory to the equation) was Kostya Tszyu. In a series of research heavy pieces, that was a silly mistake. Apologies to the readers…Keith Thurman is calling for Terence Crawford. If his discussed fight with Yordenis Ugas takes place, and Thurman wins, that could put some juice into the challenge and build towards an event…Seneisa Estrada-Yokasta Valle at strawweight looks to be another intriguing undisputed clash. The more the merrier. 

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com