Al Mitchell (on Mikaela Mayer): “She listens, she trains hard and with each fight, I see her getting better and better.”

Al Mitchell (on Mikaela Mayer): “She listens, she trains hard and with each fight, I see her getting better and better.”

By Matt Elliott

When Al Mitchell started on his coaching journey, he could never have predicted that he would end up training females, let alone helping to guide the professional career of one of the world’s most recognisable female boxers, Mikaela Mayer; in fact, to have even suggested it would have been ludicrous. Now, in isolation that statement could seem inflammatory, especially when you consider the meteoric rise in the popularity of the sport over recent years, but let’s not forget that it was just over ten years ago, at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, that women were permitted to compete for the first time; a monumental occasion which would light the touch paper for what has come since.

Before 2012, there were of course several trailblazers, but females showing up at boxing gyms, especially in America, just wasn’t an everyday occurrence. Against that backdrop, it will perhaps come as no surprise that Mitchell was initially dismissive of the idea of training Mayer, when he first received a phone call from her father, asking him to bring her into his programme in Marquette Michigan.

“Her father kept calling me and asking me about bringing her into the programme and he was very persistent. I just said no, I don’t train girls. I am from North Philadelphia, we just didn’t train girls or anything like that, it was never heard of. Eventually, I found out that they were going to allow females to compete in the Olympics, so I brought her in and started working with her. We’ve now been together for almost fourteen years.”

When Mitchell finally relented, Mayer packed her bags and headed for Michigan. Initially, Mitchell did not expect her to last too long in her new environment, but he concedes that she won him over with her hard work and dedication.

“At first her boxing style wasn’t great, and she made a lot of mistakes. As tall as she was, she bent down and threw sloppy punches, but what made me train her and invest the time was her work ethic. She was running at five am, going to school to get her education, working a job and then right back to it the next day, probably getting three or four hours of sleep a night. The dedication got me, I haven’t seen an athlete produce that kind of hard work and put it all together as she did. And she was there training, every day, so I give her props for that. Also, I didn’t have another girl, so I had her training with the boys, I treated her just like one of them; I didn’t make it easy for her.”

After missing out on the 2012 Olympics, Mayer’s link-up with Mitchell saw him rebuild her style and her dedication to absorbing the instructions she was given, resulted in her successfully navigating the qualifiers for the 2016 games and earning a ticket to Brazil. Mayer made it through to the quarter-finals before suffering defeat at the hands of Russian Anastasiya Belyakova. On her return to America, Mitchell was keen for her to remain as an amateur and focus on 2020; Mayer though was looking to turn professional and wanted Mitchell by her side.

“She called me up and I figured she’d do four more years (as an amateur). US boxing would pay her, and she’d get a cheque, but she said she wanted to turn pro and wanted me to train her. I told her to think about it. Women’s boxing wasn’t big, there was no money in it, and that was the case at that time. Then I thought back to the 2012 games when I was a technical advisor for the USA squad, and I remembered Katie Taylor and the reaction she got from the crowd, they were all chanting her name, Katie, Katie. So, I put her in front of a couple of people to discuss representing her, and Top Rank got her. Bob Arum and I go way back, I had a couple of pros with him back in the day. They set up a contract and we got to work.”  

Mayer made her professional debut in August 2017 and captured her first professional title, the WBC-NABF belt, just over a year later. Further victories followed, before she successfully defeated Ewa Brodnicka in October 2020 to win her first world title, the vacant WBO super-featherweight belt. At this time, Mayer’s popularity was growing but it was a unification showdown with IBF champion Maiva Hamadouche in November 2021 that would elevate her status and introduce her to a wider audience. The fight made history, as the first female world title fight to headline in the history of the Top Rank and ESPN partnership and was widely considered to be the fight of the year. Mitchell had the benefit of a ringside view.

“That’s one of the best fights I have ever been involved in, probably the best. Two ladies who put it all on the line, in every second of the fight. And I knew, watching Hamadouche, how she was going to fight, and I kept telling Mikaela, this girl is going to be on you, this is going to be a war, so I had to get her in tip-top shape because this was going to be the fight, and I was right. It was a hell of a fight; you don’t always see that, and I haven’t seen any come close to it since. The only other fight I thought got close that year was the two heavyweights, Fury and Wilder.”

After successfully defending her titles against Jennifer Han, Mayer agreed to another unification fight, this time with WBC champion Alycia Baumgardner. It was to be another moment of history, as the fight was part of an historic all-female card, promoted by Boxxer and shown live on Sky Sports. Mitchell travelled to London with Mayer for final preparations as the anticipation intensified for the sold-out event. Then, just two days before fight night, the death of Queen Elizabeth II was announced, and the fight was thrown into doubt. Friday’s weigh-ins were delayed before news eventually filtered through that the event was to be postponed as a mark of respect. Mitchell admitted to being surprised by the decision.

“The situation was a bit of a nightmare. There was a lot of uncertainty and then a soccer player I know came across to me and told me that they might shut everything down. I said no, surely not, but he said Coach listen to me, this is not America, it’s different. I said surely there’s no way that will happen and then later on, it’s all off. We went back to America, and I thought, well this probably won’t be rearranged for a couple of months, but they tell us the new date almost immediately, which was like a month later. I gave Mikaela some time off from the gym and it was disruptive but like I told her, just like it happened to you, it happened to Alycia, so you just have to eat it and go out and box.”  

The rearranged date was October 15 and in a closely fought contest, Mayer suffered her first professional defeat, finding herself on the wrong side of a split decision. She was visibly shocked when the results were announced and quickly exited the ring. Opinions on the decision varied with most agreeing it was a close fight, but what did Mitchell think?

“On the night I had her winning 7-3, but I always go back home, put on the TV, and watch it over, because you can be biased when you’re in the corner because it’s your fighter. When I watched it back, I had her winning 6-4, but like I told Mikaela, 6-4 back in the Philly days, when I was growing up, means the fight can go either way, so don’t feel bad about it, I had you winning but it was close and in future, you’ve got to step on the gas and take it out of the judge’s hands. I do remember the crowd in London booing the decision though.”

Talk immediately turned to a rematch, but with bad blood between the pair, and with no contractual obligation to fulfil, Baumgardner decided to look elsewhere. Mitchell was left baffled by her decision.

“I’m amazed she didn’t accept the rematch because it would have been a huge payday for both women, everyone wanted to see the return, but she didn’t want it and that shocked me. When it comes to money in our sport, you got to take it when it’s there. The return match would have been huge for both of them, and if Mikaela had won, there would probably have been a third fight, for even more money, so I don’t know how the young people think these days. I tell people that if you get in a boxing match, you can make enough money so that even if you lose, you can laugh. This is a hard sport; you go after the money if you can.”

With the rematch failing to materialise, Mayer stepped up to lightweight and made her debut at the end of April, defeating late replacement opponent Lucy Wildheart to become interim WBC champion and, more importantly, putting her into a mandatory position to face the reigning undisputed champion, Katie Taylor. That’s a fight that excites Mitchell.

“I think Taylor is one of the best boxers out there and I would love us to get another fight first, and then make that one. People can say what they want but Taylor is right at the top, right where she is supposed to be and she’s winning, and I give her credit; she’s fighting everybody, and it would be a hell of a fight. We are not overlooking anyone though, we have to do what Katie does and fight them as they come along, you can’t look beyond your next opponent because that is like stepping on a minefield.”

With Mitchell overcoming his original reluctance to work with a female boxer and given the growth of the sport in recent years, I was keen to get his view on why he feels the excitement about the women’s game within the UK, and the positive attitude of most of our key promotional outfits towards the sport, had not quite been replicated in his home country.

“I believe it will change and I think it’s starting to change now. The problem in the US is they always favour the young boxers and the men coming through. As I said about Katie and the reaction of the crowd towards her at the 2012 Olympics, it wasn’t about whether the fighter was male or female, it was about who had the support of the crowd. This year I think you will see more females breaking through in America and I tell you why. In my gym, I have six young men, but sixteen or seventeen young girls. I go to other gyms and it’s the same, more girls than boys and they look good in the ring, and they are technically sound; I am seeing seventy per cent of these girls boxing better than the boys, and something else I’ve realised, and other coaches tell me the same, they work harder than most of the men like they are trying to prove a point. So, it’s just a matter of time, you will see a female breakthrough who has real charisma, a little pop about her and everyone is going to follow. When that happens, the promoters will have no option but to sit up and take notice.”  

I saved the final word for Mayer. With Katie Taylor otherwise engaged for the near future, what are Mitchell’s plans for the months ahead?

“Every year we try to do three fights, so I am going to aim for two more fights this year and in the next few weeks we should know her next opponent. At the elite level, you don’t fight as many times as you used to, so you aim to get out once every three or four months, and usually, that’s enough. Because Mikaela is such a hard worker, I sometimes worry about her overtraining, so I tell her when it’s enough and you have to manage that carefully. What I love about Mikaela though, is when I come up with a name for a possible opponent, she always comes up with a name that’s more highly ranked than mine, that’s just the way she is. The fact she wants to test herself is what I like about her. I’ve been with her for over thirteen years, and she listens, she trains hard and with each fight, I see her getting better and better.”