The Beltline: A headline fight like Jonas vs. Mayer will tell us a lot about the popularity of women’s boxing in 2024

By Elliot Worsell

WHILE it’s straightforward for some to pander or distract with hyperbole, the popularity of women’s boxing was all the time going to be determined by headline fights reasonably than the histrionics of the males who earn a living from them. Forget the noise, and overlook the success tales of one or two, what issues in the finish are the mid-level fights and whether or not these – fights good however not spectacular – have a common headline slot on exhibits in Great Britain going ahead. Fights like Natasha Jonas vs. Mikaela Mayer, for instance, which takes place this Saturday (January 20) in Liverpool.

That fight, for Jonas’ IBF welterweight title, is as pure a fight as you will get in the women’s recreation proper now; that means it isn’t being offered by social media-driven animosity, nor does it comprise an already established star, similar to Katie Taylor or Claressa Shields. In reality, there’s something refreshingly – but additionally worryingly – regular about Saturday’s fight between Jonas and Mayer. It is refreshing, on the one hand, as a result of it feels in no method manipulative or compelled, however, on the different hand, one wonders whether or not it turns into straightforward to miss and troublesome to promote as a end result.

That was actually the feeling when watching the pair at the announcement press convention final yr. For though each in their very own proper are good talkers and interesting personalities it was powerful to search out an angle or level of curiosity when listening to them communicate. There is, in spite of everything, no hatred there, the gasoline for an additional UK headliner between Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall in 2022. There can be no Katie Taylor concerned, which suggests a ready-made viewers and the assure of eyeballs will not be there, both.

“She (Taylor) is backed by the most patriotic country on Earth,” Jonas stated to me a whereas again. “I remember (as an amateur) boxing in China, in the middle of nowhere, and they said, ‘Next to the ring, Katie Taylor from Ireland,’ and a big crowd suddenly made all this noise. Loads of Irish had come over to watch her. She’s massive there. They just love her. She’s an anomaly at the moment. Nobody else can enjoy that kind of popularity and ready-made fan base. She’s different.”

Jonas, at the time of this remark, had simply gained her first world title and was grateful for no matter alternatives she might get. There was speak of her co-headlining payments, in addition to whether or not her fights, now world title fights, trumped non-title fights between males, however these items Jonas by no means took significantly. In reality, as level-headed as they arrive, there may be with Jonas a feeling that she is content material to reside the unlikeliest of desires and will due to this fact embrace moments like Saturday – a headline fight in her hometown – with each arms.

At 39, the reality is that Jonas could not get many extra alternatives to do that. Moreover, in Mayer, whose capacity to self-promote on social media and whose rivalry with Alycia Baumgardner attracted nice curiosity, Jonas has the ideally suited foil. Together, regardless of the lack of needle, they make a fantastic pairing and the fight, for individuals who have adopted their careers, will have its attraction, no query.

Yet past that it’s laborious to know the way a fight like Jonas vs. Mayer, as a headliner, will land. Some followers, you hope, will take a look at the (admittedly transient) historical past of 10-round feminine fights and perceive that shorter fights and shorter rounds appear to supply motion and plenty of punches. However, there will even be those that will see the brevity of these fights as a detrimental and take into account the dearth of knockouts in well-matched feminine fights to be a black mark in the drama and leisure column.

Neither view is essentially unsuitable, by the method. Personal desire will all the time be the deciding issue in the case of something and maybe the solely worry right here, if there may be one, is that its heavy-handed promotion – by promoters, TV pundits, and the fighters themselves – leaves women’s boxing making an attempt to run earlier than it will probably stroll. Its progress thus far has been nice, little doubt, however more and more we’re seeing novices grow to be “world champions” or pushed as future superstars when there may be nothing to again this up aside from the agenda of males desperate to capitalise financially. That, you may say, has been the cornerstone of promotion from time immemorial, but if the product being supplied doesn’t get even near the gross sales pitch now we have been fed, it gained’t take lengthy for the buyer to cease listening to the noise and easily change off.

“It’s cheap (women’s boxing) and that’s it,” stated Jane Couch, who will this yr be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. “It’s additionally extra thrilling as a result of you may make aggressive fights on the low cost. You get some dodgy matches every so often, however even once I was combating you’d see women combating who ought to by no means have been combating.

“At the bottom level it’s back to the Nineties for the girls just starting out. You need either a big promoter or a big sponsor to make it work. But then again, it’s exactly the same in men’s boxing, isn’t it? I know men who can’t afford their medical, so can’t fight. The problem, as always, is boxing in general.”

On Saturday night time Natasha Jonas and Mikaela Mayer shouldn’t really feel pressured to do something spectacular, or transcend the name of obligation, and even “represent” women’s boxing, and so they shouldn’t be held to an unrealistic commonplace, both, not when their male counterparts get away with simply combating and representing solely themselves reasonably than a whole sport or motion.

Yet that, in 2024, is the place we discover ourselves, inevitability. For causes already defined by Jane Couch, there may be now a slew of feminine boxers – good, unhealthy, or common – being accelerated, each in phrases of profile and status, and due to this fact rising both in or close to headline slots prematurely. Exciting for them, completely, this then turns into the first actual check of their popularity – away from social media, that’s – and in addition offers us all a significantly better concept as as to whether all-female headline fights entice the consideration we’re informed they need to. For it is just when this occurs we will know for certain that women’s boxing is the place it must be; self-sustaining, autonomous, able to run.