Unified junior middleweight champion Natasha Jonas was willing to stick around at 154-pounds, but she was unable to secure a showdown with pound-for-pound opponent Claressa Shields.
Last year, Jonas moved up in weight by several weight divisions to capture three world titles, in three fights, at junior middleweight.
On Saturday, she will drop down in weight to face Kandi Wyatt for the vacant IBF welterweight title in Manchester. A win would make Jonas a two-division world champion.
Jonas explained that she was very interested in facing Shields, who is currently the undisputed world champion at middleweight. Shields had previously been the undisputed champion at 154-pounds and was willing to drop down to face Jonas at 154.
Their negotiations hit a big snag – with the two sides being far apart on the money. With Jonas heading down to 147, she doubts the fight with Shields will ever come off in the future.
“It was literally just money that let it down. She’s sick of talking about it, and I’m sick of talking about it, and now that I have gone back down, it is definitely off now,” Jonas told The Echo.
“It is four titles in a row, and it has been a bit of a slow and frustrating start to the year, but I will be happy to get it underway by getting back into the ring.
“I would have stayed at super-welterweight if I was fighting Claressa. The fight would have been at 154. I am not a big 154, and I have never really been a 154 fighter; it was just that there were opportunities that I believed I could win that kept presenting themselves. I’d already said there is not going to be a Terri Harper fight, so the only option was to go back down because there was no one else there to fight.”