By Declan Taylor
BOXXER kick off their 2024 schedule with a return to Liverpool the place hometown favorite Natasha Jonas faces her hardest take a look at for years. American Mikaela Mayer is the customer and brings the requisite clout to make sure this showdown with Jonas tops a stable invoice at the metropolis’s M&S Bank Arena.
After an award-winning, hardware-gleaning three-fight run throughout 2022, final yr was an altogether extra irritating one for Jonas, who boxed solely as soon as and stopped the overmatched Kandi Wyatt inside eight rounds in July.
But her and Boxxer wasted no time in making amends in 2024 and a crack at Jonas’ IBF welterweight title was sufficient to persuade Californian star Mayer to make the journey to Merseyside for her fourth straight battle on English soil.
This welterweight encounter with Jonas will tick off the third totally different weight class in which Mayer has boxed since she suffered the first defeat of her profession again in October 22 when Alycia Baumgardner nicked a cut up resolution against her at the o2 Arena.
After that, she beat Lucy Wildheart just a few miles throughout east London at the Copper Box in her light-weight debut earlier than leaping as much as light-welter to face Silvia Bortot at the Manchester Arena, the place she received by shutout.
Now she is going to face Jonas at welterweight, a full 17lbs heavier than she was against Baumgardner 15 months in the past. She will nonetheless take pleasure in a peak and attain benefit against Jonas, herself a former world champion up at super-welterweight, however Miss GB believes she is the ‘naturally bigger’ of the two and the dimension benefit will make a distinction.
Jonas has considered one of the greater knockout percentages in girls’s boxing, with 9 of her 14 wins ending inside the distance however a stoppage right here for both of them appears unlikely. What appears to be like set to unfurl is a phonebox battle between a duo who’re each able to mixing it on the inside. These two might mix for one other basic for girls’s boxing.
Who comes out on high is tough to determine however the choose is southpaw Jonas to win on factors after a battle so shut that whoever loses will really feel aggrieved.
The choose of the undercard comes at super-middleweight the place Jack Cullen defends his British and Commonwealth titles against Zak Chelli. Cullen, Little Lever’s Meat Cleaver received the belts in emphatic style, stopping Mark Heffron in three rounds simply 4 months again in considered one of the greatest British victories of the yr.
And he has been rewarded with one other outing right here, with Chelli the man chosen for his first defence. The Londoner, nonetheless solely 26, acquired again amongst the wins in September by stopping journeyman Jordan Grannum at York Hall. Before that, Chelli was crushed by Manchester’s Mark Jeffers in July, and this subsequent journey north means one other tangle with a person from the fast-rising Jennings Gym.
Cullen has been educated by the Jennings brothers, Michael and Dave since 2020 and it has been a rollercoaster trip for the crew, with stoppage defeats to Kevin Sadjo and Diego Pacheco in addition to victories over Avni Yildirim and September’s huge win against Heffron, which gleaned the two belts he’ll defend for the first time right here.
Given the method of that victory a bit over 4 months again, it’s onerous to choose against Cullen right here against a person nonetheless rebuilding after that defeat to Jeffers. This appears to be like like a pairing that ensures motion so it might flip right into a British and Commonwealth barnburner which may very well be nip-and-tuck on the playing cards. Cullen, nonetheless, has the instruments to grind Chelli down and win.
Jeffers, too, is in motion right here as he defends the English super-middleweight title against the robust former holder of that belt Germaine Brown. In reality, the 29-year-old Londoner misplaced the title to Chelli again in 2022 after which Chelli failed in his first defence against Jeffers.
But Brown has been given one other alternative to win the strap against the 25-year-old Northern Ireland-born Chorley resident. He was written off by many against Chelli, certainly this author picked Jeffers to lose that battle, however he’s a giant favorite this time round with Brown priced as a 3/1 underdog with most oddsmakers.
Brown has misplaced twice in his profession, each in his final three fights and each in 10-round contests. He has by no means been stopped, nonetheless, and is more likely to hold robust all through this one however the ever-improving Jeffers ought to win this on factors.
A late and really welcome addition to the card comes at middleweight the place rising Irish star Aaron McKenna faces former British title challenger Linus Udofia over 10. McKenna is 17-0 and had the first 10 of these in America however his final seven have taken place in England as he bids to construct his profile right here. There are excessive hopes for him and he’s nonetheless simply 24 however this conflict against Udofia represents an actual take a look at of his credentials and can present a good measuring stick for his present place.
Udofia beat the present European champion Tyler Denny in 2019 and misplaced on a cut up against Denzel Bentley for the British title in 2022. His solely different defeat got here in October when swelling round his proper eye acquired so unhealthy in a conflict with Kieron Conway that he was stopped in the sixth.
He returned with a low-key four-round factors win over 2-6-2 Dylan Courtney in December and now, seven weeks on, will get the likelihood to safe considered one of the largest wins of his profession against McKenna, six years his junior. Even so, McKenna ought to have sufficient firepower to get by this safely on factors.
There can be a step up for featherweight Kariss Artingstall who fights 9-1 Brazilian Lila dos Santos Furtado, whose solely defeat got here against one other English lady – Raven Chapman – in their 10-rounder at York Hall in August.
This conflict with undefeated Artingstall takes place over eight and can doubtless consequence in Furtado going 0-2 against the Brits.
Elsewhere on the undercard, Jonas-managed flyweight Mikie Tallon is in motion over 4 whereas cruiserweight Jack Massey bins over six.
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