Mikaela Mayer: "There is no way I will lose this fight with Sandy Ryan. I am going to do everything I want to do with ease."
"My training camp has gone very well. I feel really good. I have been learning new things. They might think they know what they are getting. But they really don't." Mikaela Mayer has never been shy with her words or her confidence. As another fight week was beginning as we connected over Zoom, I knew very quickly that nothing much had changed.
Mayer had just landed in New York. Another big fight awaits the former unified world super-featherweight champion. This one carries a little bit of an edge. Probably a touch more.
This Friday, Mayer will challenge Sandy Ryan for her WBO world welterweight title in a good old-fashioned grudge match. A well documented bust up that centred around Ryan moving her training base to Las Vegas, where Mayer had also set up her training camp. Kay Koroma, a long-standing member of the Mayer set-up, started working with Ryan. Mayer saw it as a conflict of interest and moved on. That's the short version. Words have been said. There is a dispute in the story. But a grudge always sells. In truth, it is perhaps why the fight got made. In many ways, it suited all concerned. How it came, doesn't matter. It just came.
Mayer added Kofi Jantuah to her training team to work alongside Al Mitchell, who has been a constant since the amateur days. Mayer believes she is an improved fighter since those changes were made.
"I feel being with Coach Al and Coach Kay for so long we had our system with the things that we did," Mayer told FightPost. "And it worked. What we did, it did work, but it became the same kind of thing over and over. But since I have been working with Kofi, we have been switching things up. We have been working together for four months, so I have really had time to incorporate the new things he has been teaching me. The number one thing is the way I rotate into my punches. I used to be a little stiff. It worked for what I did, but Kofi said no, we have to work on that rotation. We have adjusted the mechanics of my boxing a little bit. And just the energy and the mindset that Kofi brings in. I have a lot more confidence with Kofi in my corner."
Mayer has lost only two fights in her professional career. Wafer-thin decisions to Alycia Baumgardner, and in her last fight in January, another desperately close split decision to Natasha Jonas for the IBF world welterweight title. Two setbacks, that many thought that she was more than a touch unlucky, that have taken her off her planned career route.
"Even though the world thinks I won those two fights, I would be stupid not to say those defeats have affected my career," Mayer says of those two painful defeats. "A third one would certainly not be ideal. But I will have fights for as long as I want to have fights for. I will make the call when it is the end of my career. Sandy has openly said that she thought I beat Baumgardner and Jonas. So they can use the fact and hide behind that I have two losses but I have built my career so that I will be able to have big fights for as long as I choose to be in the ring. My pay might be affected, but I am still going to get the fights. I am still one of the toughest fights for anybody. But in my mind, I am not even thinking about that because, in my mind, there is no way that I am losing this fight.
"It's frustrating, but I can't really dwell on those two defeats because there is nothing I can do about it. Some people are trying to count me out just because of those two losses. They think I am on the decline. But the fight with Tasha was one of my greatest fights. I am not on the decline at all. I have been unlucky in a couple of decisions, but I am still at my prime, and I am still at my peak."
Mayer is full of confidence for her second tilt at welterweight glory. A fired up fighter who seems different this week. The body looks stronger. The mind also. A fighter who seems determined not to leave it to chance.
"I am just better. I am just going to do everything I want. There is no way I will lose this fight with Sandy Ryan. I am going to do everything I want to do with ease. I am going to beat her to the punch every single time."
Mikaela Mayer has been involved in two of the greatest female fights of the modern era. That truly unforgettable war with Maiva Hamadouche and her fight with Jonas earlier this year. There is every chance that this weekend's fight with Sandy Ryan will be another one that will live long in the memory. Mayer will hope a little slice of luck finally comes her way. But she will also hope that luck doesn't come into it.
Photo Credit: JP Lim
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