Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) defeated WBO female welterweight champion Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) by a 10-round majority decision in a fight that appeared razor-close on Friday night at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The scores were 97-95, 97-93, and 96-94. Boxing247 scores it a draw at 95-95.
It was a fight of two halves, with the lanky Mayer landing speedy combinations and outworking the champion Ryan through the first five rounds. Starting in the sixth round, Ryan began landing huge shots.
She clipped Mayer with a big left hook to the head in the round, followed by a right hand. Those shots whiplashed Mayer’s head sideways, but she took them well.
Mayer used lateral movement to evade the pressure from Ryan, but it wasn’t effective as she was getting caught with huge shots whenever she’d stop moving. She used clinching to negate Ryan’s inside game, and then would release and fire a sheaky shot.
In round 8, Ryan made an adjustment, taking the fight in close and connecting with hard punches to the head of Mayer. Near the end of the round, Mayer landed a blistering combination that caught Ryan clean. However, Ryan came back in the final seconds of the round to land a handful of solid blows that caught Mayer.
Those shots would have knocked out a lot of fighters, but Mayer took them well. Perhaps it was her size because she looked enormous compared to Ryan inside the ring tonight, but not all solid weight. Mayer was carrying around some weight around her midsection.
In the chief support bout, junior middleweight contender Xander Zayas (20-0, 12 KOs) pitched a 10-round shutout against Damian Sosa (25-3, 12 KOs). The scores were 100-90, 100-90, and 100-90.
This was a gimme-type of opponent for the 22–year-old Puerto Rican native Zayas, who was hitting him at will with left hooks to the head and body the entire fight. Sosa didn’t have much power, and he wasn’t letting his hands go like he normally does because he was getting hit too much.
In the championship rounds, Sosa finally showed some ambition, tagging Zayas with some hard shots and making him back off. However, Zayas still dominated because he was able to handle Sosa’s power shots without needing to fight cautiously.
Again, it was a gimme for Zayas, like his previous 19 opponents. Top Rank isn’t taking chances with Zayas because they don’t want him to get beaten. He did not look good in some of his last fights when he got hit. So, tonight, he was put in with a non-puncher.
