Mary Spencer holds up the belt following her victory over Ogleidis Suarez in their WBA World Super Welterweight Championship fight in Montreal, Thursday, April 10, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
Mikaela Mayer, left, gestures after a women's WBO welterweight title boxing bout against England's Sandy Ryan, centre, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in New York. Mayer won the fight. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Mary Spencer holds up the belt following her victory over Ogleidis Suarez in their WBA World Super Welterweight Championship fight in Montreal, Thursday, April 10, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
GMH
Mikaela Mayer, left, gestures after a women's WBO welterweight title boxing bout against England's Sandy Ryan, centre, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in New York. Mayer won the fight. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Three world titles are on the line Thursday when Canada's Mary Spencer meets American Mikaela Mayer in Montreal.聽
The 40-year-old Spencer defends her WBA super-welterweight crown with the vacant WBC and WBO 154-pound titles also up for grabs in the wake of the recent retirement of Norway's Cecilia (The First Lady) Braekhus. The 35-year-old Mayer, a former super-featherweight (130-pound) titleholder who holds the WBO welterweight (147-pound) belt, is moving up in weight in a bid to become a three-division champion.聽
American Oshae Jones holds the IBF title at 154 pounds.
While there is plenty of hardware on the line Thursday, Spencer was more interested in the challenge.
"I never really cared about (championship) belts, to be completely honest," she said. "I am excited to be in exciting fights. This fight right here, I think, is going to be extremely exciting because the style matchup is fantastic."
And Spencer believes that matchup favours her.
"This is a style that, I think, is going to make me look good. I learned to box fighting people like Mikaela ... An orthodox stalker, a little bit shorter than me, coming at me, throwing a lot of punches. This is what I love," she said.
Spencer's least favourite matchup?
"A moving southpaw. It's probably everybody's least favourite but it certainly is my least favourite," she added with a laugh.
Spencer (10-2-0 with six knockouts) will have a size advantage Thursday. She walks around closer to 160 pounds, cutting weight to make 154.
"I'll be back up to 160 come fight night so I'll have even more of a size advantage."
For Spencer, Mayer was an unexpected challenge.
"She was never on my radar because I never imagined that she was coming up to my weight category," she said.
Mayer (21-2-0 with five knockouts) had been looking for a welterweight unification bout with Welsh fighter Lauren Price, the Tokyo Olympic middleweight champion who holds the IBF, WBA and WBC titles at 147 pounds. But when terms could not be agreed, the American accepted the Spencer fight.
Mayer is ranked ninth in The Ring's women's pound-for-pound rankings and No. 6 by ESPN.
The Montreal-based Spencer returned to her roots in training for the fight, holding the bulk of her camp in Detroit and her hometown of Windsor. She did the same for her last fight, reuniting with former assistant coach Karo Ro, who was inducted into the International Women's Boxing Hall of Fame in 2025.
"It was super-comfortable and very very familiar," said Spencer.
Spencer became interim WBA super-welterweight champion in September 2024 via her unanimous decision win over Germany's Naomi Mannes. She was elevated to full champion after Britain's Terri Harper vacated the title to fight at lightweight.
She defended the title in April with a unanimous decision win over former world champion Ogleidis Suarez of Venezuela. It was her third straight victory since a pair of losses to Belgium's Femke Hermans for the IBO super-welterweight title in December 2022 and in October 2023 for IBO and IBF super-welterweight crowns.聽
Spencer, who took up boxing at 17, won world amateur titles at 66 kilograms in 2005 and 2008 and at 75 kilograms in 2010.
She was 好色tv champion at 64 kilograms when they announced women's boxing was joining the Olympic program in 2012, finishing fifth at 75 kilograms at the London Olympics with only three women's weight classes contested.
Mayer is also an Olympian, making the quarterfinals of the 2016 Rio Games as a lightweight. After turning pro, she won the vacant interim WBC lightweight (135-pound) title in April 2023.
Mayer won the vacant WBO super-featherweight title with a decision over Poland's Ewa Brodnicka in October 2020, adding the IBF title in November 2021 by outpointing France's Maiva Hamadouche. She suffered her first loss in October 2022, losing a split decision to WBC champion Alycia Baumgardner in a title unification bout.
After losing to a split decision to IBF welterweight champion Natasha Jones of England in January 2024, Mayer won the WBO 147-pound title in September 2024 in a majority decision over England's Sandy Ryan. She earned a unanimous decision over Ryan in a March rematch.
Thursday's co-main event at the Montreal Casino pits Quebec City's Wilkens Mathieu (14-0-0 with 10 knockouts) against Montreal's (The Jamaican Juggernaut) Shakeel Phinn (27-3-2 with 17 knockouts), with the NABF and WBC Continental super-middleweight titles on the line.
Toronto's Arthur Biyarslanov, a 2016 Olympian and NABF junior welterweight champion, meets former IBF light-welterweight titleholder Sergey Lipinets of Russia on the undercard.聽
Biyarslanov has won all 19 of his pro fights.
---
This report by 好色tvwas first published Oct. 28, 2025.
