BY JAKE DONOVAN
January 23, 2023
Source: Boxing Scene
Photo Source: Boxing Scene
There is no evidence to suggest that Natasha Jonas slowed even in what she has regarded as the twilight of her remarkable career.
That doesn’t mean she plans to stick around beyond her prime.
A career-defining win was claimed by the two-division and reigning IBF welterweight titlist, who bested Mikaela Mayer via split decision. Much like the cards, opinions were split on the outcome which saw Jonas win by scores of 96-94 and 96-95, which overruled a 97-93 Mayer card to retain her title last Saturday at M&S Bank Arena in her hometown of Liverpool, England.
The win came five months shy of Jonas’ 40th birthday, and with little intention of hanging around far beyond that milestone.
“Unfortunately, I can’t be around forever,” Jonas told Sky Sports’ Andy Scott during her in-ring post-fight interview. “This is probably my last year in boxing. We want to make it the best chapter in the book.”
Jonas (15-2-1, 9KOs) viewed this all along as a must-win, not because retirement was the next step but that she needed a career-defining win. Mayer (19-2, 5KOs) fit the bell, as a 2016 U.S. Olympian, former unified junior lightweight champ and current pound-for-pound entrant.
The similarly credentialed Jonas always seems to fall just short when conversation turns to the sport’s elite.
“Miss GB” was a quarterfinalist during the 2012 London Olympics and has won four major titles spanning two weight divisions in the pros. She fought then-unbeaten WBC 130-pound titlist Terri Harper to a draw in their August 2020 thriller that would have won Women’s Fight of the Year if the category existed at the time. She pushed then-unbeaten and undisputed lightweight champ Katie Taylor to the brink in a narrow points loss in their May 2021 thriller.
Five straight title fight wins have followed, a run which began with a three-division leap.
Jonas went to junior middleweight and won the WBO, WBC and IBF titles all in succession in a 2022 Fighter of the Year-worthy campaign. Her lone fight of 2022 was an eighth-round knockout of Kandi Wyatt to win the IBF title which she successfully defended versus Mayer.
The hope now is to either unify—Jonas has called out lineal, WBC and WBA champ Jessica McCaskill, who next faces mandatory challenger Ivana Habazin on April 20 in Croatia—or land at least one more high-profile assignment.
“Ben [Shalom, head of BOXXER] keeps providing me with the opportunities,” Jonas noted of the promoter with whom she signed prior to her two-division title run. “We sit there—me, Ben, Joe [Gallagher, Jonas’ head trainer]—we look at all the opportunities that are available and take the ones that are best for me.”
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