The FightPost Fighter of the Year: Mikaela Mayer

The FightPost Fighter of the Year: Mikaela Mayer

The upward trajectory of women’s boxing has most definitely stalled somewhat in 2024. The priority has gone elsewhere. The incredible riches of Riyadh Season have not only harmed the domestic UK shows but also the female side of the sport. But with Boxxer hoping to relaunch women’s boxing in 2025 with their next all-female card in March, hopefully, what we saw this year won’t be repeated next year.

The upper echelons of the female ranks have struggled to get fights. A sign of the times in many ways. But despite the ongoing negligence, women’s boxing still had a number of highs amongst the frustration of many a fighter.

Previous winners of the FightPost Fighter of the Year honours, Chantelle Cameron and Natasha Jonas, have both fought twice in 2024. Cameron has had a rebuild this year. Two fights that have set her quite nicely for 2025. Jonas, after a slow 2023, managed to get out twice. A fight-of-the-year contender in January against Mikaela Mayer should have set Jonas up for a not-so-long goodbye. But that victory over Mayer was only followed by an extended period on the sidelines and therefore extending her time in the sport. Jonas returned in December and won a fifth world title when she beat Ivana Habazin in Liverpool to add the WBC bauble to her IBF world welterweight title. ‘Miss GB’ will be out in March at the Royal Albert Hall. Lauren Price will be next. A welterweight unification clash of much intrigue.

Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano gave us another classic. Taylor won again, and like Jonas, she was in the running for Fighter of the Year honours. Claressa Shields and Alycia Baumgardner, for different reasons, only had one fight each in 2024. Both sit high on the pound-for-pound lists, but they need regular ring activity going forward. They have talked about fighting each other. Despite the obvious weight discrepancy, it might be what they both need if they can’t find a worthwhile opponent closer to their natural weight.

Skye Nicolson managed three fights in the calendar year. She won the WBC world featherweight title and defended it twice. Nicolson will hope a really big fight comes her way next year. Ellie Scotney could be that fight. In different ways, they need each other.

Also worth a mention are two fighters who went undisputed in 2024, the now-retired Seniesa Estrada, and the flyweight queen Gabriela Fundora. But I do think one fighter just has done a little more over the last twelve months.

After losing her much-anticipated unification super-featherweight world title fight with Alycia Baumgardner in 2022, Mikaela Mayer spent 2023 rebuilding and hoping a door at the top table would open for her again. Mayer moved up to welterweight and landed a world title opportunity in January against the IBF champion Natasha Jonas in Liverpool. It was a fight that delivered on every level. But Mayer yet again left the UK thinking she had been robbed of a rightful victory. But despite the frustration, it was still a performance that left Mayer very much part of the world title picture. Jonas and Mayer was an early fight-of-the-year contender. But Mikaela Mayer would serve up an even better fight eight months later.

When Mayer couldn’t get the rematch with Jonas over the line, she turned her attention to the WBO welterweight champion Sandy Ryan. We know the story of Ryan working with long-term Mayer stalwart Kay Koroma and the American subsequently letting Koroma go. She called it double-dipping. Either way, a feud was born. A story of venomous words, throw in a tale of red paint on Fight Day. The build-up was beyond simmering. The fight raised it to boiling point.

Ryan and Mayer gave everything and a little bit more in September. A red-hot affair in New York that FightPost saw as the fight of the year. Ten pulsating rounds. A breathtaking twenty minutes. When the final bell rang, Mayer hoped that this time it would be different. And it was. Mayer got the majority decision. This observer had Mayer winning beyond doubt. The incredibly hard-earned win gave Mayer leverage and control of her career. It looks like Mayer and Ryan still have unfinished business. It looks increasingly likely that they will run it back early next year. Nobody will complain on that score.

Mayer put in two really strong performances in 2024. She persevered and didn’t let the disappointment of January affect her. Two years in the boxing wilderness ended with that victory over Sandy Ryan. All things considered, Mikaela Mayer had the strongest year of any other fighter in consideration for the end of year honours, and the newly crowned WBO world welterweight champion is the FightPost Fighter of the Year for 2024.

Photo Credit: Top Rank/JP Yim/Lawrence Lustig/Boxxer