Mayer vs Ryan: Rematch to Paint the Town Red… Again?

The highly anticipated rematch between the two-weight division champion, Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5KOs) who will be defending her WBO welterweight title against the former champion Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3KOs) on Saturday March 29th, at the Bleaulive Theater at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.in the co-feature we also have Brian Norman Jr. defending his WBO welterweight title against Puerto Rican challenger Derrieck Cuevas. Mayer-Ryan II and Norman-Cuevas will be broadcast live on ESPN, ESPN Deportes, and ESPN+ at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT.

The heated rivalry between Mayer and Ryan has only intensified with increasing tensions between the two since their first outing Last September. There was a lot of speculations and going back and forth between the two with Mayer claiming Ryan stole her trainer, and Ryan claiming that someone from Team Mayer’s camp threw red paint at her outside of the New York City hotel.

Mayer is a 2016 Olympian who turned pro in 2017 wreaking havoc in the junior lightweight division capturing the IBF and WBO world titles. Mayer just came up short in a controversial split decision loss in October 2022 against WBC champion Alycia Baumgardner. Mayer decided to move up to lightweight the following April to claim the WBC interim belt with a win over Lucy Wildheart. Mayer then handed a loss to Silvia Bortot that September by outpointing Bortot. Four months later Mayer returned to challenge Natasha Jonas for the IBF belt in which she loss in another close and controversial split decision. Lastly Mayer had Ryan on her radar and snatched the WBO title to become a two-division champion and now we have the rematch coming on March 29th.

Ryan is the fighting pride of Derby, England who captured gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and silver at the 2014 World Championships before turning pro in 2021. After suffering her first loss to Erica Farias, Ryan rebounded by winning a decisive unanimous decision in the rematch. Ryan then went on to capture the vacant WHO welterweight title in 2023 by beating Marie-Pier Houle. A draw with former undisputed champion Jessica McCaskill halted Ryan’s hopes of unification glory. Ryan then rebounded last March in emphatic fashion with an electrifying knockout of Terri Harper. This led to Mayer snatching the title and ending Ryan’s short reign as champion in a Fight of The Year candidate in September. With all the bad blood this rematch has the makings of another possible Fight of The Year candidate and these two will be putting it all on the line come March 29th.

The co-feature will have Cuevas (27-1-1, 19KOs) who will enter the ring with a four-fight knockout streak looking to make it to five that began back in 2022. Cuevas will be looking to make light work of Norman (26-0, 26KOs) who is undefeated and is definitely no push over. Also, on the ESPN+ undercard we have Bruce (Shu Shu) Carrington (14-0, 8KOs) who quickly rose to the WBO’s number one contender spot, who looks to continue his path to championship glory when he takes on Jose Enrique Vivas (23-3, 12KOs) in a 10-round WBC final eliminator. Vivas is a rugged Mexican fighter who began his career with a 17-0 run before suffering his first defeat at the hands of Ruben Villa in September of 2019. Make sure to tune in March 29th or head down to the arena and don’t miss out on this action-packed night of fights!