Mikaela Mayer feels like she has ‘lived three different lives’.
Before establishing herself as one of the best pound-for-pound boxers on the planet, Mayer played bass in an all-female heavy metal band.
Mikaela MayerMayer went from playing at Warped Tour to fighting at Madison Square Garden[/caption]
Mayer picked up the bass at 12 years old, and by 15, she had played two Warped Tours – America’s premium rock and metal festival.
“I put out an ad on Craigslist and said ‘Hi, I’m 14’ – I lied, I was only 13 – ‘I’m looking for an all-girl rock or metal band,” Mayer told talkSPORT.com of how her music career got started.
“I got some responses within a few days, and these three girls popped up.. .and we formed Lia-Fail…
“I was so young that when I played the shows – like at the Whiskey Go Go – I had to leave right away because I was too young to even be in there…
“But I stopped doing the band thing because I was with this controlling boyfriend.
“When you’re young and you meet somebody, you don’t want to follow your passions anymore, and so I ended up quitting this band, and that’s where I went through my rebellious stage of not showing up to school and not going home for weeks at a time.
“The teenage spiral ended when I walked into the boxing gym at 17.”
Mayer started off with Muay Thai, inspired by the success of Gina Carano, but after taking some boxing fights to keep herself busy, she fell in love with the sport.
“I took my first boxing fight at 18 at a show in downtown LA at Eddie Heredia’s gym,” Mayer added.
“At this stage, women weren’t allowed to compete in the Olympics, and you never turned on Friday night fights and saw a female.
“So I don’t really know what I was thinking. There was no real role model for me, I was just creating this blueprint in my head as I was going.
“But then they announced female boxing would be at the Olympics [at London 2012] and that immediately became the goal.
“I was 18 years old, I had just started boxing. Some people laughed at the idea, but I told my dad, and he was behind me again; he never doubted me.”
Four years later, she was in the inaugural finals of the US Olympic trials, however, a couple of points losses to four-time national champion Queen Underwood meant she narrowly missed out on London 2012.
Mayer rebuilt and regrouped after the setback to, this time, successfully qualify for Rio 2016.
She defeated Jennifer Chieng in the Round of 16 but was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Anastasia Belyakova via a contentious majority decision.
GettyShe is the reigning WBO welterweight champion[/caption]
By this point, Mayer had grown disillusioned with amateur boxing and was desperately close to making the transition to MMA.
The Californian had a Bellator MMA contract on the table ready to be signed, but that’s when Top Rank swooped in at the eleventh hour to secure her to a long-term deal.
During her now seven years with Bob Arum‘s promotional outfit, Mayer has gone on to achieve remarkable success in the paid ranks.
She previously held the lineal and unified WBO and IBF super featherweight titles before being dethroned by Alycia Baumgardner in 2022 and is now in possession of the WBO welterweight crown.
Mayer snatched the pink and gold strap from Britain’s Sandy Ryan last September in a fight marred by controversy.
Ryan was doused with paint as she made her way over from her hotel to the arena at Madison Square Garden Theatre on fight night.
Fingers were immediately pointed at Mayer and her team, but the American insists she had nothing to do with it.
Ryan is adamant that the incident disrupted her preparations and will now get the opportunity to exact her revenge in a rematch on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
“I saw what you guys saw,” explained Mayer. “We were staying in the same hotel, so I was asked to come down, but I was told to wait because Sandy was waiting for her car, and they didn’t want us to run into each other.
“And so as we are sitting there waiting to go down the elevator, we get a text that someone just threw paint on Sandy.
“I didn’t understand the extent until I went online, and then everyone is pointing the finger at me.
“And I’m like ‘Wait, what? I’m literally trying to get downstairs for the fight of my life.
“‘I have been working to get back into this position for two years, and I’m going to sabotage it with some paint?’ That is lame to me…
“The biggest part of that was the way Sandy’s team reacted. Your team is supposed to keep you cool, calm and collected and say ‘Go wash that f***** paint off and let’s go and do what we f***** do’.
Mikey Williams/ Top RankMayer snatched the WBO belt from Ryan last September, and they are now set to run it back[/caption]
“But they just blew it out of proportion, and that had to of messed with Sandy’s head.
“It’s one of the reasons I’m saying ‘Okay, let’s give her a rematch’… But again, people were saying, ‘Oh, she didn’t fight like herself. ‘
“She fought like herself. That girl is always emotional. She’s a head case. She is always freaking out about something in her head.
“I’m not surprised if the paint messed her up, but, whatever, let’s do it again and I can do it better and prove everyone wrong.”
