Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano's third and final act was a thing to behold

NEW YORK — Somewhere around the sixth round of Alycia Baumgardner’s super featherweight title defense against Jennifer Miranda, the crowd kicked up to a sustained roar. It had nothing to do with the action of the fight. It had everything to do with anticipation of what was on deck.

Up until that point, the Puerto Ricans who’d assembled at Madison Square Garden had been the far louder representatives. Every time Amanda Serrano appeared on the jumbotron from her locker room, the flags would wave and people would dance. But halfway through the Baumgardner fight, the Irish began to arrive in number. Flooding in from nearby pubs and taverns in their groups of jolly many, to see their own defiant underdog, Katie Taylor.

Now the thing was really coming together.

The Irish and the Puerto Ricans in a single room, an arena hallowed by the boxing gentry for hosting so many of history’s greatest fights, arriving from all ports of New York and from thousands of miles beyond — from the homelands themselves. Dueling hysterias that weren’t there to be outdone. If the Puerto Ricans had an early advantage with the decibels, the Irish took the job seriously to drown them out. Baumgardner’s fight became a marker that merely suggested the nearness of the hour. A last ritual before the ceremony.

And by the time they were singing the anthems, first the Amhrán na bhFiann, the Irish national anthem, then Puerto Rico’s, the passion had reached a pitch. If you Google-Earthed it to the head of a pin, all that passion zeroed down on the two women who busted the door down in women’s boxing.

Taylor and Serrano. Rivals by circumstance. Pillars of uninhibited, hot-blooded vicarism.

What a night it was in the Big Apple. The pervading feeling in the air was that we were here to see Serrano get some justice. We’d lived in the notion that if she weren’t robbed in the first fight — which was held at MSG a little over three years ago — she was in the rematch this past November. Whoever governs the laws of percentages would surely favor Serrano. If the judges at ringside found themselves in a 50/50 fight, there would be a natural pull to Serrano, the MVP fighter who sprung into national acclaim through Taylor and — by so doing — had become a professional at heartbreak.

Through her walkout, you got the sense that tonight the record would be set straight. This was Serrano’s homecoming, her moment. Serrano has the deepest ties to New York. If nothing else, the Taylor rivalry has brought out a showman. Natti Natasha sang her out, while the New York Knicks cheerleaders lined the runway for her hero’s welcome.

Serrano gave the fans everything they wanted, too, dancing her way to the ring. If there was a party going on in the hearts of all the Puerto Ricans in New York, she was the fearless emcee. No nerves. No overwhelming sense of gratitude, as she displayed at the first fight. This was a thing of belonging. She was there to do work, and nothing sets a table quite like comeuppance.

Then came Taylor, alone. She didn’t arrive with singers or cheerleaders. She stood in the entryway like a lone wolf in silhouette. There was poetry in it. One line of faith. If the odds were against her, she was here to once again show that odds are fictional things, no different than superstitions, or omens. If Puerto Rico was the party at sundown, she was the church at daybreak. She wasn’t there to give anything back.

When people look back on this trilogy, they will find it all in a single hour.

That’s how long Serrano and Taylor needed to create history in the moment and the longing for more. Thirty total rounds, in two-minute installments, in which all of the drama unfolded. The first fight was the coronation, as women’s boxing headlined MSG. The aura of Taylor versus the heart of Serrano. They went to war, standing in the pocket at times and hacking away at each other. Serrano had Taylor hurt in the fifth round, which was the first plot twist of many.

In the second fight, it was the head-butt, and the cut over Serrano’s eye. It was the threat that the fight would be stopped, and then the reality that Serrano kept coming. The notion that she, in fact, won. If not on the official scorecards, then in eyes of the public at large. Some 50 million people who tuned in on Netflix contributed to the emotional pool.

The trilogy wasn’t a brawl. There were no moments when caution went to the wind, and each bit down on the mouthpieces. At no point was anybody rocked or wobbled or was anyone in trouble. There were those in-stereo moments during exchanges, in which both fan bases came out of their seats, yet what took place was a boxing match. Action, reaction. Strike and counter. Footwork and head movement.

In the first round, nothing happened. In the second and third, rhythms. The left of Taylor was on the frontlines to clear a way for the right. The jab of Serrano was to crank up the volume, to create some inroads.

When it looked as though Taylor was getting ahead, Serrano pushed the action. If things were going to slip away, she would at least have her say. In the sixth, as if to bring one of the subplots full circle, it was Serrano who clashed her head into Taylor’s. It was no-sold. Taylor, ever defiant to the narratives, didn’t lead with her head at all. She was happy to fight at range, to cut angles, to fire rapid sallies when stuck on the ropes, to make sure the right counted when there — vintage Taylor with hand speed and a plan. Serrano came over top and marked Taylor’s face, but it’s hard to land flush on a target that knows better.

Both fighters were in private wars with familiarity, and they wanted to show there was still more to them.

The tension held for the third straight time all the way to the scorecards, but there was a dawning sense this time that Taylor had gradually outclassed Serrano. A subtle masterclass that was coming into view as the cards were gathered. Hers was a simple passage with profound meaning. And when the ring announcer “Big Mo,” Kody Mommaerts, read those cards back to the room, the hearts of Puerto Rico already knew the party was over.

At least for them. For the Irish it raged on, through the brilliance of Katie Taylor.

As Madison Square Garden emptied, so did the joy. Not because of who won or lost, but because it was over.

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Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano’s third and final act was a thing to behold

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