IBF world female welterweight champion Natasha Jonas (15-2-1, 9 KOs) retained her title with a ten-round split decision win over challenger Mikaela Mayer (19-2, 5 KOs) on Saturday night at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England.
The scores were 96-95, 96-94 for Jonas, and 97-93 for Mayer. This writer had it for Mayer 97-93. The best score of the three was 97-93 for Mayer, as she clearly won the fight and looked like pure 24K gold tonight. She needed to be minted because of the shiny gold in her performance.
It’s unclear what the two judges were thinking that gave the win to Jonas, but given the location of the fight, being in the UK, it’s not a massive shock that the hometown girl got the win.
Home Advantage?
The crowd noise may have influenced the judges, as they were screaming each time Jonas would land a shot while staying quiet when Mayer was landing, which was most of the time.
Mayer was the busier fighter of the two, landing more often and dominating the later rounds against the 39-year-old Jonas. You can’t call this a robbery, but it was a badly scored fight with two judges getting it wrong.
Jonas looked her age tonight, not throwing enough punches, getting outworked by a huge margin, and needing to hold to escape from being stopped in the last two rounds.
Mayer Makes a Strong Case
In the ninth and tenth rounds, Mayer hurt Jonas with big shots that had her holding on in the final seconds of the round. Major walked forward all night, throwing left rights repeatedly and continuing to pummel Jonas while being clinched nonstop.
That was Jonas’ only defense – to hold because she could not keep up with the high work rate and power of the younger, stronger 33-year-old Mayer tonight. Jonas’s advanced age, lack of size, and low work rate were her undoing in this fight. Yeah, she won, but not in the true sense.
In this writer’s view, a rematch would be in order on neutral grounds outside of the UK because there’s no way that Jonas deserved to win the fight tonight. Staging in the UK a second time might result in the same type of scoring, which is why it needs to be on neutral territory.
Mikaela Seeks Rematch
“I thought I did enough to win. I would have given her the first round or two, but after that, I feel like I outpunched her and landed the cleaner shots. I think that fight is worth seeing again. I hope Natasha will be the stand-up champion that she is and give me another shot,” said Mayer.
