Mikaela Mayer Targeting a Fight With Natasha Jonas

Mikaela Mayer Targeting a Fight With Natasha Jonas

It might seem like a random pointless fight for Mikaela Mayer. It might even seem that Top Rank don’t know what to do with her, or even that they have completely given up on her. But there is a plan, and if negotiations go well, Mayer will be challenging for a world title in her very next fight, at welterweight. FightPost understands the preference for Mayer, is a fight with the recently crowned IBF welterweight champion of the world and former unified world super-welterweight champion Natasha Jonas.

The former unified world super-featherweight champion makes a return visit to the UK on September 2nd when she faces the former EBU European super-lightweight champion Silvia Bortot in Manchester on the undercard of the Liam Smith Chris Eubank Jr rematch in Manchester. Make no mistake, in many ways, her place on that Boxxer card is significant. The fight with Bortot is a stay-busy fight, with a possible world title fight with Jonas to follow towards the end of this year or early in 2023, if negotiations go the way Mayer and Top Rank want them to.

Mayer controversially lost her unified world titles last October in London with a hotly disputed split decision loss to Alycia Baumgardner and with an immediate rematch with her bitter rival, not an immediate option, Mayer took the decision to move up to lightweight for her next fight and chase a fight with Katie Taylor. The American outpointed Lucy Wildheart earlier this year and was due to feature in an all-female double-header with Seniesa Estrada on a Top Rank show last month to continue her pursuit of a world title shot at lightweight. But when the realisation dawned that all doors remain firmly shut in the lightweight ranks with Taylor likely to be tied up in rematches for the foreseeable future, Mayer took the decision to move further up the weight classes and target world titles in the 140 and 147-pound divisions. With Jonas and a welterweight title fight being the most realistic and immediate option.

Sandy Ryan and Jessica McCaskill will do battle for the remaining welterweight baubles next month in Florida, and Mayer has talked openly about wanting to fight Chantelle Cameron and with Cameron also publicly showing an interest in that fight, that is a viable option for both. But with the politics of the sport always seemingly in play, a fight with ‘Miss GB’ seems the route with far fewer complications for Mayer, although FightPost is of the understanding that Jonas has options elsewhere and Boxxer are seemingly keen on pushing Mayer in the direction of Caroline Dubois who will challenge for the IBO lightweight title on September 30th and will noticeably be ringside when Mayer fights Bortot in Manchester.