Mikaela Mayer Targeting A Fight With Sandy Ryan

Mikaela Mayer Targeting A Fight With Sandy Ryan

In many ways, this week has resulted in a new beginning for Mikaela Mayer.

Any lingering hopes for an immediate rematch with Natasha Jonas ended without reward. A fight, for different reasons, that both Jonas and Mayer desperately wanted. Both were working together to get the fight over the line.

Once the originally intended date of June 15th on the Boxxer card that is now being headlined by Chris Billam-Smith and Richard Riakporhe fell away, all parties explored all available options to save the fight, including the possibility of doing the fight in America, before a UK platform was eventually sourced.

A date and venue in July were seemingly locked in. Terms were agreed. The problems lay elsewhere. Neither fighter is to blame for the fight not being made.

There was still hope that the fight could be salvaged as late as the beginning of this week, but there now appears to be an acceptance that the fight is now dead in the water.

The outstanding issues were who was paying for the rematch and, more crucially, who wasn’t. The final nail in the coffin was who would have had the option to promote a possible third fight if Mayer won the return fight. That finer detail was ultimately why the fight is now not happening.

But both Jonas and Mayer will now seek alternatives for their next fight.

Mikaela Mayer is already making moves. She still has that date in July in play if a suitable opponent can be found, and the American has a number of top-level names in mind who she wants to fight on that potential July date. Work is ongoing to secure an opponent that mutually satisfies. Mayer isn’t interested in repeating the situation she was in last year. Fighting opponents that didn’t threaten or inspire her. Legacy-enhancing fights are what she craves.

But her next fight is not the only area of her fighting life that she is making moves in. A situation that has been more than rumbling since January has now been resolved.

FightPost is of the understanding that Kay Koroma is no longer part of the Mayer inner circle. A conflict of interest with potential future opponent Sandy Ryan, the WBO welterweight champion, is the reason why Mayer has decided to move on without him. Koroma was in Ryan’s corner when she defeated Terri Harper in Sheffield in March.

‘I’ve had the same team my entire career. I’m loyal to the bone, but I have boundaries & they’ve been crossed,” Mayer posted on her X account overnight, signalling the end of her long working relationship with Prosper. Mayer has already identified his replacement. Al Mitchell, who has been with Mayer since her amateur days, remains very much part of the new set-up.

The breakdown in the talks for the rematch with Jonas has left Mayer with no alternative but to look at other options for her route back into the world title picture. With Boxxer now having Jonas, Lauren Price, and Ivana Habazin under some kind of contractual obligation, Mayer only has Ryan as a more immediate option for a fight with world title implications. As a result, the WBO bauble holder is now her primary target. The removal of Koroma from the Mayer camp removes that conflict of interest. The American has wasted no time in calling Ryan out.

A Sandy Ryan Mikaela Mayer fight makes perfect sense for all concerned. With all the other belts seemingly tied up within the promotional world of Boxxer, Mayer offers Ryan a major fight while she waits for the possible Boxxer in-house unification series to play out. Eddie Hearn has previously mentioned Mayer has a potential fight for Ryan, but citing the issues with both fighters being with the same team as a possible obstacle in making that fight. That obstacle has now been removed. For Mayer, it’s simply her way back in.

At 33, Mayer still retains her immense ambition. The two wafer-thin defeats to Alycia Baumgardner and Jonas, that could so easily have gone her way, have only heightened those ambitions.

The loss of the Jonas rematch is another case of what if and a badly missed opportunity for all concerned, something boxing does so well. But Mikaela Mayer has wasted little time in moving on to other targets. Sandy Ryan now being that target. Ryan might not have initially reciprocated the advances of Mayer. But if the British fighter is unsuccessful in luring in Jonas, Price or Habazin, which is her preference, which seems likely for many reasons, Mayer might then be of interest to her. Mayer you sense will keep pushing her point home. She is unlikely to take no for an answer.

Photo Credit: Lawrence Lustig/Boxxer/Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing