The bond between manager Brian Peters and star-fighter Katie Taylor had never been more apparent than the day they sat on the top table and announced Taylor would, finally, headline at Croke Park.

Peters has been by Taylor’s side throughout her incredible professional journey that has seen them share 26 fights through 10 years.

They have headlined in Madison Square Garden, set attendance records, boxed on bills with Mike Tyson, unified, gone through the weights, been undisputed, fought on the lawn at Matchroom in COVID and much more besides.

Taylor is now 40 and preparing to bow out from professional boxing after one last big night, at the place she’d always dreamed of fighting at.

At Croke Park, on September 5, Taylor boxes France’s Flora Pili, 12-0 (2 KOs), on what will surely be an emotionally-charged night.

On June 5, when the bout and the location was announced, a tearful and clearly-thrilled Peters couldn’t hide his happiness and spoke to the audience as though he was a proud father at his daughter’s wedding.

“Yeah, I said it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Brian getting emotional,” Taylor said on a recent media call. “I actually finally broke him is what I was saying to him. But I think he’s getting a lot of sick from that. But I think that just goes to show how much it actually meant to him. And he worked so hard on this himself over these last few months to actually get this over the line and we’ve been speaking about this maybe for the last four or five years.

“I don’t think people outside of Ireland really understand how much Croke Park actually means to us and the history behind Croke Park and, politically, it has been so tough to get this over the line. So it meant so much the fact that we’re actually there on the top table at this press conference actually announcing that the fight has actually happened. And what an amazing response about this event as well.”

All 80,000 tickets evaporated in some 30 minutes in yet another example of Taylor’s box office appeal.

There hasn’t been a boxing event there since 1972, when Muhammad Ali fought Alvin “Blue” Lewis.

It was, of course, Peters who broke the news to Taylor, that the historic deal had been done.

“I actually had a conversation with the team after the last fight in the hotel room saying, ‘I think this is going to be it for me, guys, unless Croke Park actually happens,’” Taylor recalled. “But I kept training just because, in the back of my mind, I was thinking what if Croke Park actually happens. And maybe eight or nine months ago Brian rang me up and said, ‘Okay I’m going to give Croke Park one final shot’ and he was, with Eddie Hearn, they obviously worked so hard over the next few weeks and months in getting this over the line. And they got [influential Irish music promoter] Peter Aiken involved as well, which was a game-changer in this also. And then I got the phone call from Brian saying it’s a done deal. It’s all going to happen, and I had to fly home for the press conference. I still pinch myself that this has actually happened to be honest because obviously, you know yourself, politically it’s been so hard to get this fight over the line and I lost hope so many times over the last few years that this is actually going to happen and so, to get that phone call, this is the stuff of dreams. It’s the fairytale end I always wanted. And it’s been just amazing preparing for this fight over these last few weeks, I can’t believe it’s actually happening.”