There is no animosity between Mikaela Mayer and Chantelle Cameron this weekend; their Birmingham clash sells itself.
The well-matched junior middleweights meet for Mayer’s WBA and WBC belts, alongside Cameron’s WBO strap, at bp pulse LIVE in Birmingham, England. The 22-2 (5 KOs) Mayer, who trains out of Las Vegas, is coming off a pair of wins over Sandy Ryan and victory over Mary Spencer. She always felt a bout with Northampton, England’s Cameron could happen.
“For sure,” Mayer said. “We’ve stayed cool throughout the years because we knew each other from the amateurs. So she was fighting at 140 and I was at 47 at this time. And we’ve talked and she said she was going to come up to ’47 and we always thought, ‘Okay, we’ll probably eventually have to get in the ring together.’ But we always thought that would be a great fight for the sport.”
And while Mayer has not always gone through her fights without making rivals, most-notably after a well-documented row over her former coach and opponent Ryan, there has been nothing but mutual respect between Mayer and Cameron.
“No, we’re cool,” Mayer said.
“I mean, like the first media day we had with MVP, we had to do a million face-offs. We had to fly to Orlando, do a million face-offs and a bunch of media stuff. We hung out the whole time.
“I told them, I was like, ‘This can never happen with an opponent I have a rivalry with. Okay, you guys get like one or two face-offs max.’ So we must have done 100.
“So it’s cool. You know, it is what it is. We’ve both had similar careers, we have kind of that same kind of mentality when it comes to fighting and wanting to get in there and fight the best, and we have similar come-forward styles, aggressive, high work-rate. So I think it’s a perfect matchup.”
Mayer, who also holds titles at 147lbs, said there is a rematch clause, so if this weekend produces a close fight, they could well run it back. But Mayer also still has her own ambitions. She was recently mentioned by Claressa Shields as a possible opponent in the near future.
“Yeah, and that’s not the first time,” Mayer said. “Our teams have already discussed us going at it and potentially fighting each other. One-sixty is her minimum that she’s willing to go down to. So, you know, if I want the fight, I’ve got to accept that and go to 160, which I’m not a 160-pounder, I’m barely a 154-pounder, but I’d be willing to do that for a megafight against Claressa Shields. And we’ll see. She threw out Lauren Price’s name also, that’s the fight I want next. Really, that’s my fight because she’s got the other belt at 147. Her and I, we’ll fight for undisputed if I can get that fight with her. So I don’t really want her to go fight Claressa Shields because that holds me back from challenging her for undisputed.
“But again, it is what it is. People are going to go and do what they do and take the money. So if that happens, maybe I’ll be next.”
Does that mean Claressa could fight Tamm Thibeault, and Mayer could face Price with the winners eventually fighting?
“In a perfect world,” Mayer said. “That’s three different promoters, three different networks, so many different moving parts. You never know in boxing. So I always just take one fight at a time. And I do have a rematch clause with Chantelle. So that’ll sort of keep me busy for the rest of the year.”
