At Matchroom's Fight Camp in Brentwood, Katie Taylor retained her IBF, WBO, WBA, WBC lightweight world titles with a unanimous decision win over Delfine Persoon as their highly anticipated rematch produced another brutal battle.

The Irish star (16-0, 6 KOs) had narrowly defeated Persoon on points in their first fight at Madison Square Garden in New York City, a ten round majority decision which was hotly disputed.

But Taylor received a wider verdict in the return bout with scores of 98-93, 96-94 and 96-94.

Taylor was confident that this time around she had done enough to win.

“I think so. I knew it was going to be a tough battle going into this fight. It’s never going to be an easy fight against Delfine. I knew I had to dig deep at some stage during the fight but I thought I boxed a lot better than last time. I still could’ve boxed a bit more," Taylor said.

"It’s always going to be tough. You can’t relax at all in there against someone like that. She’s going to come and come and come. Even though I am hitting her with clean shots, she is just on the attack all the time. That’s why it is such a tough fight against someone like Delfine. But congratulations on two fantastic fights. They were an amazing two fights for women’s boxing.

"I think [this victory] was a lot more convincing [than the last fight] even though it was a tough fight. But as I said, it’s always going to be a tough fight against someone like that and you’re going to have to dig deep and show a lot of heart at some stage during the fight. But I think I did that well, I boxed well.”