Mikaela Mayer: Third Time Lucky?

Mikaela Mayer: Third Time Lucky?

There are many who would say Mikaela Mayer should still be unbeaten. The two defeats that spoiled her once unblemished resume are more than disputed. Alycia Baumgardner and Natasha Jonas edged past Mayer by split decisions in 2022 and 2024, respectively. Mayer could easily have won both. She didn’t win either. On September 27th, Mayer will hope it’s third time lucky.

After four fights on UK soil, including those two heartbreaking reversals to Baumgardner and Jonas, Mayer will return to more familiar and comfortable ground.

Sandy Ryan will head to New York next month to defend her WBO world welterweight title against Mayer. The American hasn’t fought on home ground since she successfully defended her unified world super-featherweight titles against Jennifer Han over two years ago. Mayer will be glad, and more than a little relieved that she has home comforts once again.

Mayer has gone through the proverbial rollercoaster of emotions since that gut-wrenching night at the O2 Arena in London in October 2022. Not once did Mayer think she would lose to her most heated rival. When that final bell chimed to temporarily put an end to their boiling rivalry, Mayer thought she had done more than enough to see off her fellow American. But Mayer left that ring a broken fighter. She was convinced that she had won. A victim of daylight robbery. The crowd heavily booed Baumgardner. But it changed nothing.

I saw a beyond distraught Mayer the morning after. An empty hotel foyer that was only filled by broken dreams and a fighter still trying to process what had gone wrong the previous evening. A process made almost impossible by Mayer still firmly believing that she didn’t lose.

Mayer took her time. Went through her period of grief. Before, she eventually found what she needed.

“It was really, really hard. It’s like you are just sitting there thinking wake up wake up. This can’t have happened, and you want to redo it. You have to sit with the feeling that you can’t do it again. It’s over. Even if you disagree with it and that you got robbed, you can’t change it. There is no going back. And that is a really hard thing to come to terms with.” An emotional Mayer told me a few weeks after that unforgiving night with Baumgardner.

I still vividly remember that interview with Mayer. That brief awkward clumsy meeting on that desolate deserted hotel the morning after, even more so. You see a different fighter in times like that. You see the human side of them. We forget that there is a human being behind all the pre-fight words and what they serve up in the ring. The venomous words Mayer and Baumgardner exchanged were now long gone. Only the brutality and solitude of a defeated fighter remained. The pain of defeat. A career unfinished. Looking for a way back in to finish it. The tears had flowed freely. A long grieving process was still in play.

Mayer did find a way back in. It took two fights, fifteen months, and seventeen pounds. The super-featherweight ranks were left behind. Mayer eventually landed at welterweight. And in Liverpool. In January, Natasha Jonas put her IBF world welterweight title on the line against Mayer. A big headline fight in that fighting city that Jonas calls home.

This was different in many ways. The pre-fight words were a little softer. Jonas and Mayer went to war only with their fists. Again, it was close. Again, it went against Mayer. The online critique again largely had sympathy for Mayer. But yet again, Mayer knew all the support would change nothing.

But Mayer, I sensed this time was a little better prepared for the consequences of losing. Maybe because she has gone through it all once before, it was a little easier second time around.

But on that fateful night in 2022, Baumgardner took something away from her, and I don’t just mean her world super-featherweight baubles. Against Jonas, it was different and felt different.

“For a few reasons, it definitely doesn’t feel as bad. I walked into the fight as a challenger, and I walked away from it as a challenger, so nothing has been taken away from me.” Mayer said to me just a few weeks after suffering her second defeat in twenty-one professional fights.

Mayer, this time, was obviously bitterly disappointed but resolute that she was still in prime position. The hope was that she would get a second fight with Jonas. But even in February, Mayer had one eye on Sandy Ryan. The in-house drama was already very much in play.

“Plan A is the rematch with Tasha. Plan B is the winner of Sandy Ryan and Terri Harper.” Mayer relayed to me about who she wanted next. Jonas and Mayer wanted to run it back. But with no firm date offered, they went their separate ways. Plan B suddenly became Plan A.

Ryan stopped Harper in four rounds when they met in Sheffield in March. But there was trouble behind the scenes. Kay Koroma, a long-time part of the Mayer inner circle, was in Sheffield working with Ryan. A parting of the ways was always inevitable. Trust me, it had been coming. A case of when and not if it would happen. Koroma was out, Kofi Jantuah was in.

A new trainer. A new rival. The stars have aligned for another unmissable war of words. The fight with Ryan next month will likely see Mayer in her element. She won’t hold back. Mayer has already started.

“I want to get this right. I want to hurt Sandy. I really do, I want to hurt her.” Mayer said when I spoke to her about her upcoming fight with the Derby fighter. You sense this time it is about much more than that WBO world title.

Ryan was a strong betting favourite to beat Terri Harper back in March. But the odds are a lot closer for her fight with Mayer. At 8/13, Ryan is favoured to beat the former Olympian. But at 11/8, the Mayer faithful will be very tempted about those early odds. Mayer will be by some distance the best opponent Ryan has faced. But Mayer has probably fought better opposition than Ryan. Alycia Baumgardner and Natasha Jonas could be just a few steps ahead of what Ryan has achieved so far. Some might even argue that Maiva Hamadouche is somewhere near the level of where Ryan is right now. Either way, Mayer has been in with a better quality of fighter. That experience at a higher level could be crucial.

Mayer hopes that on September 27th, Lady Luck will be on her side after what happened to her against Baumgardner and Jonas. Ryan deserves credit for going to ‘enemy’ territory to face someone of the calibre of Mayer, and women’s boxing potentially has another one of those special nights. A fight that surely can’t fail. It has the ingredients to deliver in every possible way.

But you have to question the logic of why Eddie Hearn has let his fighter fight on a Top Rank card against a Top Rank fighter on American soil. Especially when that fight with Jessica McCaskill should still be fresh in the memory. A night when Ryan was denied a rightful victory. Why didn’t Hearn make a serious attempt to tempt the Boxxer trio Natasha Jonas, Lauren Price, and Ivana Habazin to fight Ryan? Hearn knows better than most of the importance of being in the ‘home’ corner.

But Mayer could well benefit from her promoter putting up the money to give her the best possible chance of regaining control of her career. But after those two fights, which didn’t go her way, Mikaela Mayer will try not to leave anything to chance in New York. Third time lucky, Mayer will hope that luck doesn’t come into it.