CARL Frampton, Steve Collins, Katie Taylor, Dave ‘Boy’ McAuley, Barry McGuigan, Wayne McCullough, ‘Rinty’ Monaghan… Deciding who's the best of the fighting Irish often boils down to a matter of personal choice but Taylor’s career statistics support Collins’s view that she is the best to come out of the Emerald Isle.
An Olympic Games gold medallist and world amateur champion, the Bray woman is a two-weight world champion and the undisputed queen of the lightweight division as a professional.
Frampton, who equalled the record of former light-middle and middleweight world champion Collins by winning belts at super-bantam and featherweight, can go a step further by adding the super-featherweight title and becoming Ireland’s first-ever three-weight world champion.
His fight with Jamel Herring looks likely to be made for November and Frampton justifiably feels that winning it will make him as Ireland’s best-ever. Collins disagrees.
“Not a chance,” he said.
“Katie is the best fighter to come out of Ireland bar none.”
Speaking yesterday, Taylor said: “It’s not for me to say.
“I’d love to sit here and say I’m the best Irish fighter ever but Carl is obviously phenomenal. That’s for other people to say, not me.”
