Mayer defeats Ryan by UD in Vegas

When WBO welterweight world champion Mikaela Mayer beat Sandy Ryan by a majority decision in their fight back in September, it was super close, and you could have made an argument that Ryan won. That wasn’t the case on Saturday night as Mayer defeated Ryan by a clear unanimous decision at BleauLive Theater at Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

One judge scored the fight 98-92, while two others scored the fight 97-93.

There is a lot of bad blood between Mayer and Ryan. Mayer was not happy with Ryan training with her old coach, Kay Koroma, and before the first fight, someone threw red paint on Ryan, and she believed someone on Mayer’s team had something to do with it.

In their first fight, Mayer (21-2, 5 KOs) outlanded Ryan (7-3-1, 3 KOs) by one punch, but in the rematch, according to Compubox, Mayer outlanded Ryan(178-149), and she was also the busier fighter as she threw more punches(516-377).

Mayer, who dominated the early rounds, was able to hold off Ryan, who came on late in the fight. In the eighth round, a clash of heads opened a cut over Mayer’s left eye. However, Mayer was able to fight through the cut and get to the finish line.

Photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank Boxing

“I had been needing to move to welterweight for a long time,”  she said. “So, when I finally did, it just took a good, solid year and a half of hard work. This is where I’m comfortable, and this is where I should have been.”

Mayer wants to be an undisputed champion at welterweight; to do that, she must beat unified champion Lauren Price.

“I beat Sandy Ryan twice,” she said. “Now it’s time for me to move on and go for undisputed, which is against Lauren Price.”