Chantelle Cameron produced one of the most interesting shows of her profession to beat Mikaela Mayer and add the WBA and WBC mild middleweight titles to her WBO belt.
An engrossing encounter was narrowly won by the British fighter by unanimous resolution – 97-93 on two scorecards and 96-94 on the other.
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American Mayer disagreed with the resolution, claiming she “outboxed” Cameron – main to an offended exchange of phrases in the ring.
The risk of a rematch was also floated, with Mayer also suggesting Cameron had benefited from home benefit – to the champion’s chagrin, as she said “talk is cheap”.
It means Cameron stays unbeaten since her second struggle with Katie Taylor in 2023, and with 23 victories in 24 skilled encounters.
And this was one of her best shows. These fighters were evenly matched in every metric – from punch charge to top and weight, even coiffure.
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But Cameron won out thanks to her unrelenting stress, which never allowed the normally adaptable Mayer to determine out a profitable gameplan.
Mayer was the more imposing determine early on, but Cameron performed counterpuncher until she could get onto the entrance foot.
Cameron pressured Mayer against the ropes in spherical 4, and again at the begin of the fifth. Increasingly assured to take the initiative, she was roared on by a partisan but disappointingly small home crowd.
Mayer was unable to get in behind her jab for long intervals and was bleeding and respiration closely by spherical six.
The home favorite was cut in the closing rounds but pushed through and was lifted shoulder high by her staff before her greatest win since beating Taylor in Dublin three years in the past was announced.
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For three-weight world champion Mayer, this is the third defeat of her 25-fight profession and prices her the WBA and WBC belts, which Cameron now places with her WBO title.
When this occasion was announced, it was the prime occasion of the August bank vacation weekend in British boxing.
However, the elevation of Moses Itauma v Filip Hrgovic to a world title struggle left this big-ticket occasion feeling rather undeservedly like a support act.
That was mirrored in the crowd, with scores of empty seats around the area as the foremost undercard started. At a beneficiant estimate, BP Pulse Arena was half-full when the fighters made their ring walks for the foremost occasion.
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Mayer and Cameron did their best to convey the huge struggle feeling in the build-up. Previously cordial relations boiled over on Friday as they butted heads at Friday’s weigh-in at BP Pulse Arena.
Cameron shoved her head into the American, who pushed back, before they exchanged insults aspect by aspect.
On struggle evening, Mayer performed up her away standing by getting into the ring to American Woman by Lenny Kravitz. She also wore a black durag over her trademark blonde hair, before eradicating it to show tight dreadlocks – the same model as Cameron.
However, her moxie was finally worn down by Cameron, with a huge proper to the chin in spherical seven the most notable of blows.
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This struggle headlined the occasion marking the fifth anniversary of Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), the promoters fronted by Jake Paul who, since 2021, have moved from YouTuber fights to main the manner for girls’s boxing in the UK.
Paul, influencer and co-founder of MVP, was in the home. He headlined on 29 August 2021, beating MMA fighter Tyron Woodley, but was in a watching transient here.
MVP’s next girls’s boxing area occasion will take place in November in Texas.
It will be headlined by unified super-featherweight champion Alycia Baumgardner, with the American stepping up to light-weight to face Elif Nur Turhan – on her manner to a potential 2027 showdown versus Caroline Dubois.
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World championship fights on the undercard will embody featherweight champion Tiara Brown defending against former undisputed champion Ellie Scotney, and tremendous bantamweight champion Skye Nicolson against three-time, two-division champion Miyo Yoshida.
The next struggle is significantly important for Cameron, after her first struggle at BP Pulse Arena since November 2024 – and her first since her much-lauded transfer to MVP.
MVP have a lot of choices they could introduce from their steady. IBF mild middleweight champion Oshae Jones seems the logical next step; or IBF, WBO and The Ring middleweight belt holder Tammara Thibeault of Canada.
Cameron recurrently laments that she has not had the possibilities her expertise deserves since her blockbuster double header against Taylor in 2023.
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Three years on, she will need fights of that degree – particularly after Saturday evening’s consequence.
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