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Katie Taylor ended her career the way she spent it: winning. The Irish icon shut out Flora Pili over ten rounds Saturday night at Croke Park in Dublin, taking a unanimous decision by scores of 100-90, 100-90, and 98-91 to claim the undisputed super lightweight championship in the final fight of her career. She retires at 26-1, a three-time undisputed champion holding every belt at 140 pounds. The occasion outshone the fight, which was always the likely script. Pili came in unbeaten but had never faced anyone near Taylor’s level, and it showed. Taylor was too fast and too skilled from the opening rounds, ripping combinations inside and getting out before the Frenchwoman could answer. Pili’s one real moment came in the seventh, when she snuck a flurry through and briefly made it a firefight, but Taylor went back to sharpshooting off the retreat and the challenge faded. In the tenth, trainer Ross Enamait sent her out with one instruction, enjoy it, and Taylor tore in with hooks and straight rights while the crowd chanted “olé” through the final round of a 30-year career. What the fight lacked in drama, the night made up for in scale. More than 80,000 fans filled the first boxing event at Croke Park since Muhammad Ali fought there in 1972, Westlife performed before the main event, and fireworks lit up the Dublin sky. The card streamed on DAZN with no pay-per-view charge and aired free-to-air in Ireland on RTE2. The ceremony afterward delivered the image of the night. Eddie Hearn cleared the ring and left Taylor alone with the crowd. She took a final lap, laid her gloves in the center of the ring, and her team placed every one of her belts beside them. Taking the microphone, she declared, “Croke Park, we did it; we brought boxing back to Croke Park.” She thanked the fans for being with her since before London 2012, through the heartbreak of Rio, and across the world from Manchester to Boston to Brooklyn, and said she is convinced Ireland is the only country that would sell out 80,000 tickets for a female athlete. Speaking to RTE afterward, she said “nothing can top this.” Taylor told Sky Sports afterward that she’d been blessed to achieve more than she ever dreamed in the sport, but that “fighting at Croke Park really is the icing on the cake,” adding her hope that the event inspires a whole new generation. As for Hearn, who spent all week calling this “the biggest night in the history of Irish sport” and the greatest of his own career, the night answered for him. Cameras caught the Matchroom boss fighting back tears during the ring walk, an Irish scarf around his neck, as the woman he signed for a 6,000 pound purse in 2016 walked out to 80,000 people. Nobody could argue. Taylor leaves boxing as its most decorated woman: a five-time amateur world champion, Olympic gold medalist at London 2012, undisputed champion at lightweight and twice at super lightweight. She and Amanda Serrano became the first women to headline Madison Square Garden in 2022, a trilogy Taylor swept across the Netflix era’s biggest platforms. Her lone loss, to Chantelle Cameron in 2023, was avenged six months later. When she started boxing, women could not legally compete in Ireland; she fought in the country’s first sanctioned women’s bout at fifteen. She retires having held at least one world title in 20 consecutive fights. Undercard Results The heavyweight co-feature between Dave Allen and Ireland’s Thomas Carty was declared a no contest just 1:22 into the opening round following a doctor stoppage. In the all-Irish welterweight grudge match, Limerick’s Paddy Donovan stopped Belfast’s Tyrone McKenna at 2:33 of the fourth round on a doctor stoppage. Welsh super middleweight Taylor Bevan spoiled the homecoming for Dublin’s Emmet Brennan, scoring five knockdowns before the fight was halted 36 seconds into the sixth round, handing Brennan his first loss. Former UFC fighter Molly McCann moved to 5-0 as a professional boxer, shutting out Sylwia Doligala over eight rounds by scores of 80-72, 80-73, and 79-73. Elsewhere, Joe McGrail knocked out Matthew Boreland in the fifth, Adam Olaniyan flattened Matej Hudak in the first, and Bobbi Flood took a 40-36 decision over Jack Swallow. The middleweight bout between Paul Ryan and Paddy Gallagher produced the night’s strangest moment: the decision was initially announced for Gallagher, then corrected in the ring for Ryan after officials said the referee’s scorecard had been misread.