By Elliot Worsell
WHILE it is easy for some to pander or distract with hyperbole, the popularity of women’s boxing was always going to be decided by headline fights rather than the histrionics of the men who make money from them. Forget the noise, and forget the success stories of one or two, what matters in the end are the mid-level fights and whether these – fights good but not spectacular – have a regular headline slot on shows in Great Britain going forward. Fights like Natasha Jonas vs. Mikaela Mayer, for example, which takes place this Saturday (January 20) in Liverpool.
That fight, for Jonas’ IBF welterweight title, is as pure a fight as you can get in the women’s game right now; meaning it is not being sold by social media-driven animosity, nor does it contain an already established star, such as Katie Taylor or Claressa Shields. In fact, there is something refreshingly – yet also worryingly – normal about Saturday’s fight between Jonas and Mayer. It is refreshing, on the one hand, because it feels in no way manipulative or forced, but, on the other hand, one wonders whether it becomes easy to overlook and difficult to sell as a result.
That was certainly the feeling when watching the pair at the announcement press conference last year. For although both in their own right are good talkers and engaging personalities it was tough to find an angle or point of interest when listening to them speak. There is, after all, no hatred there, the fuel for another UK headliner between Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall in 2022. There is also no Katie Taylor involved, which means a ready-made audience and the guarantee of eyeballs is not there, either.
“She (Taylor) is backed by the most patriotic country on Earth,” Jonas said to me a while back. “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 comment, had just won her first world title and was grateful for whatever opportunities she could get. There was talk of her co-headlining bills, as well as whether her fights, now world title fights, trumped non-title fights between men, but these things Jonas never took seriously. In fact, as level-headed as they come, there is with Jonas a feeling that she is content to live the unlikeliest of dreams and will therefore embrace moments like Saturday – a headline fight in her hometown – with both arms.
At 39, the truth is that Jonas may not get many more opportunities to do this. Moreover, in Mayer, whose ability to self-promote on social media and whose rivalry with Alycia Baumgardner attracted great interest, Jonas has the ideal foil. Together, despite the lack of needle, they make a fine pairing and the fight, for those who have followed their careers, will have its appeal, no question.
Yet beyond that it is hard to know how a fight like Jonas vs. Mayer, as a headliner, will land. Some fans, you hope, will look at the (admittedly brief) history of 10-round female fights and understand that shorter fights and shorter rounds seem to produce action and lots of punches. However, there will also be those who will see the brevity of these fights as a negative and consider the dearth of knockouts in well-matched female fights to be a black mark in the drama and entertainment column.
Jonas and Mayer (Boxxer)
Neither view is necessarily wrong, by the way. Personal preference will always be the deciding factor when it comes to anything and perhaps the only fear here, if there is one, is that its heavy-handed promotion – by promoters, TV pundits, and the fighters themselves – leaves women’s boxing trying to run before it can walk. Its progress up to now has been great, no doubt, but increasingly we are seeing novices become “world champions” or pushed as future superstars when there is nothing to back this up other than the agenda of men eager to capitalise financially. That, you might say, has been the cornerstone of promotion from time immemorial, yet if the product being offered doesn’t get even close to the sales pitch we have been fed, it won’t take long for the customer to stop listening to the noise and simply switch off.
“It’s cheap (women’s boxing) and that’s it,” said Jane Couch, who will this year be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. “It’s also more exciting because you can make competitive fights on the cheap. You get some dodgy matches now and again, but even when I was fighting you would see girls fighting who should never have been fighting.
“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 Natasha Jonas and Mikaela Mayer shouldn’t feel pressured to do anything spectacular, or go beyond the call of duty, or even “represent” women’s boxing, and they shouldn’t be held to an unrealistic standard, either, not when their male counterparts get away with just fighting and representing only themselves rather than an entire sport or movement.
Yet that, in 2024, is where we find ourselves, inevitability. For reasons already explained by Jane Couch, there is now a slew of female boxers – good, bad, or average – being accelerated, both in terms of profile and prestige, and therefore emerging either in or near headline slots prematurely. Exciting for them, absolutely, this then becomes the first real test of their popularity – away from social media, that is – and also gives us all a much better idea as to whether all-female headline fights attract the attention we are told they should. For it is only when this happens we will know for sure that women’s boxing is where it needs to be; self-sustaining, autonomous, ready to run.