By Declan Taylor
BOXXER kick off their 2024 schedule with a return to Liverpool the place hometown favorite Natasha Jonas faces her hardest check for years. American Mikaela Mayer is the customer and brings the requisite clout to make sure this showdown with Jonas tops a stable invoice on the metropolis’s M&S Financial institution Enviornment.
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.
However 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 combat on English soil.
This welterweight encounter with Jonas will tick off the third completely different weight class through which Mayer has boxed since she suffered the primary defeat of her profession again in October 22 when Alycia Baumgardner nicked a break up determination towards her on the o2 Enviornment.
After that, she beat Lucy Wildheart just a few miles throughout east London on the Copper Field in her light-weight debut earlier than leaping as much as light-welter to face Silvia Bortot on the Manchester Enviornment, the place she gained by shutout.
Now she is going to face Jonas at welterweight, a full 17lbs heavier than she was towards Baumgardner 15 months in the past. She is going to nonetheless get pleasure from a peak and attain benefit towards Jonas, herself a former world champion up at super-welterweight, however Miss GB believes she is the ‘naturally greater’ of the 2 and the scale benefit will make a distinction.
Jonas has one of many increased knockout percentages in girls’s boxing, with 9 of her 14 wins ending inside the gap however a stoppage right here for both of them appears unlikely. What seems to be set to unfurl is a phonebox battle between a duo who’re each able to mixing it on the within. These two might mix for one more basic for girls’s boxing.
Who comes out on high is difficult to resolve however the decide is southpaw Jonas to win on factors after a combat so shut that whoever loses will really feel aggrieved.
The decide of the undercard comes at super-middleweight the place Jack Cullen defends his British and Commonwealth titles towards Zak Chelli. Cullen, Little Lever’s Meat Cleaver gained the belts in emphatic vogue, stopping Mark Heffron in three rounds simply 4 months again in top-of-the-line British victories of the yr.
And he has been rewarded with one other outing right here, with Chelli the person chosen for his first defence. The Londoner, nonetheless solely 26, bought again among the many wins in September by stopping journeyman Jordan Grannum at York Corridor. Earlier than that, Chelli was overwhelmed by Manchester’s Mark Jeffers in July, and this subsequent journey north means one other tangle with a person from the fast-rising Jennings Gymnasium.
Cullen has been skilled 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 towards Heffron, which gleaned the 2 belts he’ll defend for the primary time right here.
Given the style of that victory just a little over 4 months again, it’s onerous to choose towards Cullen right here towards a person nonetheless rebuilding after that defeat to Jeffers. This seems to be like a pairing that ensures motion so it might flip right into a British and Commonwealth barnburner which could possibly be nip-and-tuck on the playing cards. Cullen, nevertheless, has the instruments to grind Chelli down and win.
Jeffers, too, is in motion right here as he defends the English super-middleweight title towards the powerful former holder of that belt Germaine Brown. Actually, the 29-year-old Londoner misplaced the title to Chelli again in 2022 after which Chelli failed in his first defence towards Jeffers.
However Brown has been given one other alternative to win the strap towards the 25-year-old Northern Eire-born Chorley resident. He was written off by many towards Chelli, certainly this author picked Jeffers to lose that combat, however he’s an enormous 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, nevertheless, and is prone to grasp powerful all through this one however the ever-improving Jeffers ought to win this on factors.
A late and really welcome addition to the cardboard 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 primary 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 towards Udofia represents an actual check 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 break up towards Denzel Bentley for the British title in 2022. His solely different defeat got here in October when swelling round his proper eye bought so dangerous in a conflict with Kieron Conway that he was stopped within 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 possibility to safe one of many largest wins of his profession towards McKenna, six years his junior. Even so, McKenna ought to have sufficient firepower to get by this safely on factors.
There’s additionally a step up for featherweight Kariss Artingstall who fights 9-1 Brazilian Lila dos Santos Furtado, whose solely defeat got here towards one other English girl – Raven Chapman – of their 10-rounder at York Corridor in August.
This conflict with undefeated Artingstall takes place over eight and can seemingly lead to Furtado going 0-2 towards the Brits.
Elsewhere on the undercard, Jonas-managed flyweight Mikie Tallon is in motion over 4 whereas cruiserweight Jack Massey packing containers over six.
