Katie Taylor parks Croke Park dreams to take care of business

The London lights dazzled, the cameras flashed and the sound system boomed.

Katie Taylor was announced on stage with all the fanfare you'd expect from a world title fight. Tip the scales, make a stern face, raise your fist. She knows the drill. This is the 22nd time she has stepped into the professional ring. A winner every time. She’s used to it now.

Her opponent Karen Carabajal from Argentina looks on tensely from the side. She’s never seen anything remotely like this. It’s her first fight away from home and, in truth, she looks a little lost.

The fans cheer. The fighters stand to face each other and it’s job done. Katie Taylor puts her tracksuit back on. Now it’s time for boxing to take over. The hype is her least favourite part of the game.

"It's great to be back where it all started" - @OFlynnPaul caught up with undisputed lightweight champion @KatieTaylor ahead of her 14th title defence against Karen Carabajal in Wembley Arena on Saturday pic.twitter.com/K3wt9nCVx4

But for all the expectation, excitement and fizz in the air, there’s no escaping that the occasion is a little bit flat. It’s not where we are. Or where we’re going. It’s just it’s not where anyone here wants to be.

This weigh-in. This fight. This moment in Katie Taylor’s career was supposed to happen in Dublin. The re-match with Amanda Serrano. In Croke Park. In front of 80,000 fans. The homecoming the Bray boxer deserved. That it hasn’t happened, for a number of reasons, not least the Serrano camp running scared, is a disappointment that hangs over this contest.

Tomorrow night’s world title fight, for now, will serve merely as another appetiser for what Katie Taylor and her camp still hope someday will be a night for the ages in Dublin.

"It’s definitely not