Alycia Baumgardner has insisted she won’t give bitter rival Mikaela Mayer a rematch despite winning a controversial decision.
Baumgardner became a unified super-featherweight champion by winning a split decision against Mayer in the co-main event of Claressa Shields vs Savannah Marshall in London on Saturday night. Baumgardner was the quicker of the two fighters in the opening rounds but Mayer begun to find her rhythm and get some rounds under her belt as the fight progressed. Baumgardner had a late resurgence and two judges were confident she did enough to get the win as the scorecards read 93-97, 96-95 and 96-95 in her favour.
Mayer was furious after the decision was read and boxing fans have gone on to label the outcome as ”disgusting”. Punch stats show that Baumgardner did out-land over the course of the fight, but Mayer landed more jabs than her rival. The controversial ending to the fight led to calls of a rematch, but Baumgardner shut those down by stating she wants to go for undisputed status by facing WBA titleholder Hyun Mi Choi in her next fight.
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“She doesn’t deserve a rematch, for me I’m going for undisputed,” Baumgardner said. “I want Choi next, this is what I had planned on and what we had talked about, this is what I’m going to do. The world still hasn’t seen the best of me, I’m still progressing every day. I’m not satisfied and as an athlete I always want to keep striving to be the best I can be. I will continue to go back to the gym and work my a** off.”
Choi has held the WBA title since 2017 but hasn’t fought since defending it with a stoppage win against Simone Silva last September. A unification fight between Baumgarnder and Choi was being targeted for earlier this year, but talks fizzled out and Baumgardner went on to face Mayer. Baumgardner, who was surprised by Mayer’s gameplan, said she embraced her rival after the fight despite their bitter feud.
“Mikaela fought my gameplan really, she thought she was gonna outbox me but I’m the better boxer. I showed my jab, movement, feints and she couldn’t get past that, she didn’t know what else to do with that. I felt in my spirit that I would claim this moment and become unified champion of the world, I knew this moment was for me.
“After the fight I went go give her a hug and told her thank you,” Baumgardner added. “I’m always going to show great sportsmanship. This is the fight game but at the end of the day I still respect her, I just wasn’t showing that until after the fight, again I’m thankful we were able to build this fight up. We got a lot of eyes on this fight and this was the best rivalry, I don’t know if we’ll have another one like that but it was great.”
