This past weekend, Skye Nicolson made a successful defense of her WBC interim-featherweight title with a stoppage of Lucy Wildheart in nine rounds. The fight was part of the undercard to the junior welterweight rematch between Katie Taylor and Chantelle Cameron.
Now she’s gunning for a crack at the undisputed champion of the weight class, Amanda Serrano.
“We’ll see,” Nicolson told The MMA Hour. “Obviously I want the Serrano fight. She’s the champion in my division. I want to be world champion. I want to prove to the world that I’m the best and I want to do that by beating the best. Every time I call out Serrano, it’s never because I disrespect her or don’t think she’s good or whatever. I want to fight the best. That’s why I’m calling her out. I want to show my levels. I want to prove that I’m worthy. That’s why I call her out.
“I know that 90 percent of people write me off in that fight, and I do not care. I believe I win that fight, my team believes I win that fight, my style is all wrong for her. I keep saying this. But it’s OK. I don’t want to talk about it, I want to prove it. I want the fight. The ball’s going to be in her court. I’m going to be her mandatory and it’s going to be completely up to her whether she takes the fight or whether she leaves the belt. For me, I want that fight. I don’t want to fight for a vacant title against somebody else. I want to beat the best.”
Serrano, who saw action three times in 2023, is hoping for a high-stakes rematch with Katie Taylor in 2024. The Puerto Rican fighter is also looking to get back in the cage, as part of her deal with MMA organization PFL.
Nicolson believes her style of fighting will create a lot of problems for Serrano, who likes comes forward with a high-volume aggressive workrate.
“I believe that my style upsets her because I’m not going to stand in front of her,” Nicolson said. “She’s flat-footed. She’s strong. Very aggressive, very strong, but she’s flat-footed. She’s got slow feet and she looks good against someone who stands and trades with her, and that’s not what I would do. I would use angles, I would box and move, I will set traps, I’ll walk her onto shots, I’ll have her walking onto the ropes, and making her look silly. That’s what I do to my opponents and that’s why so many people keep saying, ‘Skye hasn’t fought anyone good.’ No, actually, I’m better. You just don’t see it, because I make people look bad.”