IBF welterweight champion Natasha Jonas has not ruled out the scenario of having a rematch with Mikaela Mayer, but appears to be looking at a possible unification.
This past Saturday night in Liverpool, Jonas has all she could handle in a fire-fight with Mayer, a former world champion at 130-pounds.
Jonas retained her belt with a close ten round split decision. The scores were 97-93 for Mayer, but the other two judges had Jonas winning with scores of 96-94 and 96-95.
In the aftermath, Mayer demanded a rematch.
“I think you could see at the end, I thought I did enough to win. I would have given her the first round or two, but after that I feel like I outpunched her and landed the cleaner shots,” Mayer said.
“At the end of the day I think that fight is worth seeing again, like she said, one of the toughest fights she’s had. I think the fans really enjoyed it. I didn’t have a rematch clause on my side but I’m hoping we can get this fight done again for the fans if they want it. I hope that her being the champion that she is, she’d want to give me a rematch. I didn’t have a clause on my side, but a rematch is warranted, the fans want to see it.”
For her part, Jonas believes that she did enough to win the fight and retain her title.
“I thought I was comfortably two rounds up at the end,” Jonas said. “I respect people’s opinion. Everyone’s entitled to one. But the result matters on the day and I got the result. All in all, I won. I grinded it out. I made it a little bit uncomfortable for myself in the middle rounds. Again I won, that’s all I can say. I won.”
As far as her next move, Jonas wants to capture some more titles – specifically the WBA strap – which is currently held by the WBC, WBA unified champion Jessica McCaskill.
“Where do we begin? I think an Anfield [fight] is a big shout. I think we have got a great set of fighters who are born and bred here, as well as the likes of [Adam] Azim, who is a big Liverpool fan,” Jonas said.
“So yeah, hopefully we can get that. And I think the only belt that I am missing in my collection is a WBA, so that automatically homes me in on Jessica McCaskill.”
McCaskill is currently scheduled to make a mandatory defense against Ivana Habazin, which is taking place on April 20 at KC Drazen Petrovic in Zagreb, Croatia.