On This Day: Mikaela Mayer Wins Her First World Title
For Mikaela Mayer, it had been a long time coming. The frustrations of the pandemic had held her back and delayed the inevitable.
It was a forgotten time when Eddie Hearn had the super-featherweight division seemingly all tied up in the Matchroom bubble. Or so he thought.
Hearn had the WBA champion Hyun-Mi Choi, the IBF claimant Maiva Hamadouche,
the WBO title holder Ewa Brodnicka as well as the unified IBO and WBC champion Terri Harper all under contract. The plan was to crown an undisputed champion in-house. But when Mikaela Mayer became the WBO mandatory challenger, she became a problem. And a pretty big one at that.
Mayer had been in the middle of a nicely simmering rivalry with Harper, and the unified world champion told Mayer to go and get a belt if she wanted in on the action. Mayer set about doing exactly that. The American set her sights on Brodnicka and the WBO title.
The restrictions of the worldwide pandemic took plenty away from that maiden world title challenge. No crowd. No atmosphere. Just a few weeks after the dominant points win over the Polish fighter, Mayer relayed her thoughts to FightPost on the fight held in Las Vegas on October 31st 2020.
"The fight didn't feel like a world title fight. It is nobody's fault. There was no audience allowed because of the pandemic. It didn't have that world title energy, I didn't really get that moment, I didn't get to have a belt put around me. It just felt a little anticlimactic, and I didn't really feel like a world champion. But I got the win, and it is another step on the way to achieving my ultimate goals. I got it done, and now I move on to the next one, but I do hope we can get fans back in there."
Mayer beat Brodnicka by scores of 100-88, 100-88, and 99-89. Brodnicka had lost her title on the scales the day before, but the weigh-in drama was soon replaced by a fighter who knew the title would be hers come what may. The champion found only fleeting success and even flirted with disqualification for excessive holding, an infringement that had cost her two points on the cards. But in truth, the point deductions made little difference on the night. Mayer started the faster and her grip on the fight was tight. Brodnicka never looked capable of winning the fight on points.
Brodnicka suffered the first defeat of her twenty-fight professional career, while Mayer improved her resume to 14-0. The American said pre-fight that Brodnicka wasn't on her level, and that was pretty much how it turned out. Sadly the fight with Harper at super-featherweight never happened for many reasons. Although with Mayer now moving up to welterweight there is every chance that rivalry could be rekindled in 2024.
Photo Credit: Mikey Williams/Top Rank
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