IT TAKES a kind of steel to come back from a loss and let it live on paper; to move beyond its fact into possibility – and hope. When I meet Mikaela Mayer, a little over a week after that fight in Liverpool, and that split decision, she is full of smiles, radiant in the Nevada sun against a wallpaper bursting tropical green leaves. Even through the Zoom screen, her presence is a force – it was her skill and ring IQ and athleticism that helped me understand about levels in boxing. Her fight with Hamadouche is still a lesson to me in how to box and fight. That there is an unusual flair in being able to do both.
Mayer can and does do both – the first female boxer to sign to Top Rank –
