The anticipation has been growing throughout fight week for this historic matchup as Taylor and Serrano are the first women ever to headline a boxing card at MSG. The hype grew immensely on Friday as WWE Raw Women's Champion Bianca Belair and former six-time women's champion Becky Lynch announced Serrano and Taylor to the stage.
Belair, the captain of Team Serrano, made history of her own at night one at WrestleMania 37 in April 2021 when she and Sasha Banks were the first African-American women to main event pro wrestling's biggest annual event. Belair pinned Banks in a great match to capture the SmackDown Women's title. The 33-year-old, who has a stepdaughter, sees what her moment did last year and the significance of what the world is about to witness with Taylor vs. Serrano. Belair feels this is an iconic moment for young girls, and they will be inspired by what Taylor and Serrano do on fight night.
"It's just an unprecedented moment," Belair told DAZN on Friday before the weigh-in. "Saturday night is going to be so historic with two women main eventing at Madison Square Garden. The representation is just so important. It's all about women's empowerment. So to have my daughter be able to look at women and see women doing amazing things and it now becoming the norm. That's what it's all about. Anytime there's representation for women in general, I'm all for that.
"Representation is what we need. It’s what shows other promotions and little girls and little boys their place in this world and their possibilities. It's super important. I'm in WWE at an amazing time. I think it's amazing to showcase women in this light. And it's wanted. People want this, and this is proof. The crowd is out there right now. They're excited. They're hyped up for this match, and they're gonna turn out Saturday night. They always say, what do women need to do to get more opportunities? We don't need to do anything. We just need those opportunities because we always show up. We always show out. Taylor and Serrano, they're getting the opportunity Saturday, and they're going to show up and show out."
Before Belair's moment at WrestleMania, Lynch, the skipper of Team Taylor, had her own historical moment. At WrestleMania 35, Lynch became the first woman to headline the event, pinning Ronda Rousey and defeating Charlotte to win the Raw and SmackDown championship belts. Like Belair, Lynch has a daughter. The 35-year-old wants her daughter to know someday when looking back at her own accomplishments and what Taylor and Serrano are about to do on Saturday, that if you put your nose down and work hard, you accomplish these achievements.
"It's a huge win, especially to fighters like these ladies get the spotlight that they deserve because without question, these are pound-for-pound the best boxers in the world," Lynch also told DAZN on Friday. "So to see the attention that they're getting, the spotlight, they're getting. To be able to be the first women to main event a boxing card and Madison Square Garden, it's huge, but they deserve it. They deserve it because they're just so damn good.
"I was talking to Katie a couple of weeks ago, and she pointed out something that I didn't even know. Women weren't allowed to box when we started. So she started in Bray County. I started out at Bray County. We were both only 15 years old. We had no trail that we could follow. We had no path we could follow to show this is what women can do. Women will one day headline Madison Square Garden in the biggest boxing match of all time. We didn't know that women could win the main event of WrestleMania. But we've done it, and to be able to show her that well, anything's possible. It feels pretty damn good, especially that I've gotten to be a small, small part of it."