The scheduling may be slightly off from what she had on her vision board but Mikaela Mayer is precisely where she needs to be at this point in her career.
A get-back year following her lone pro defeat saw Mayer twice move up in weight. A third leap was necessary, though for a good cause. The determination headed into 2024 was to only take fights with a greater purpose. A shot at Liverpool’s Natasha Jonas and her IBF welterweight title checks all the boxes.
“I wasn’t afraid to go to 147 because I saw how my body was filling out,” Mayer told BoxingScene.com. “But this made it easier for me, It’s the name. I want to fight big names. I want to challenge myself and test myself. I’m not about to wait around for anybody.”
Jonas and Mayer will meet in a scheduled ten-round welterweight title fight atop a Sky Sports show in the UK and ESPN+ in the U.S. beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET from M&S Bank Arena in Jonas’ hometown of Liverpool, England.
Mayer (19-1, 5KOs) moved up to lightweight after the end of her unified junior lightweight title reign which came in an October 2022 disputed ten-round, split decision defeat to Alycia Baumgardner in London.
Had Mayer won, the only fight that would have kept her at the weight was an undisputed championship. In defeat, her only interest in ever again fighting at 130 was a rematch with Detroit’s Baumgardner, who has since sully unified the division.
Mayer—a California native who represented the U.S. in the 2016 Rio Olympics and now lives and trains in Las Vegas—moved on to lightweight, though it was just a pit stop. A win last April led to another move up in weight to just above the junior welterweight division. It was a good fit, though absent a noteworthy fight given the two-fight series between Katie Taylor and Chantelle Cameron for the division’s undisputed championship.
There wasn’t any hesitation when the chance came to challenge Jonas (14-2-1, 9KOs), a 2012 Olympic quarterfinalist, two-division titlist and noted weight-jumper herself.
Jonas previously challenged for titles at 130 and 135 before making a three-division leap in 2022 to junior middleweight, where she unified three major titles. A move down to welterweight was a better fit for Jonas, though she never weighed close to the full junior middleweight limit during her time there.
Mayer has yet to know what it will feel like to fight at welterweight or if it’s the best fit for her, physically. For the moment—and presumably through her next fight, should she win on Saturday–it’s the best fit for her career.
“I always knew that I would eventually move up to 147,. I stayed at 130 longer than I expected and then jumped to 147 sooner than I expected. There are reasons for it. It wasn’t my body that said, ‘We gotta go to 147.’ But my body told me we can’t stay at 130 and we’re not staying at 135.
“Then Top Rank called and said, ‘We know you wanted to fight Katie Taylor and Chantelle Cameron. They’re a little busy right now. We got this opportunity at 147, though. This is the next available option for you.’ So, here we are.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. X (formerly Twitter): @JakeNDaBox