After sharing a total of 20 rounds with Sandy Ryan, WBO women’s welterweight champion Mikaela Mayer is on the lookout for new faces and new challenges, keen to add another belt to the one she already owns.

This means not only leaving Ryan and their two-fight rivalry in the dust, but also casting her eye over the progress of fellow champion’s and the next generation now coming through. Which is perhaps why a fighter like Wales’ Lauren Price appeals to Mayer, 21-2 (5 KOs), and would appear to tick every box. 

Price, 9-0 (2), currently holds the WBC, WBA and IBF women’s welterweight titles, having dethroned Natasha Jones in March, and is considered by most to be one of the best fighters coming through. She has experience as an amateur, and is relatively mature at 30, but has so far boxed only nine times as a professional and has of course yet to defend the belts she won earlier this month. 

As a fellow champion, though, Mayer now sees in Price her future; a future she knows for certain will be at welterweight. 

“This is where I belong,” said Mayer, a former world champion at super-featherweight. “I needed to move to welterweight for a long time. When I finally did, it took a good, solid year of hard work. This is where I’m comfortable, this is where I should have been.

“I wanted to give Sandy the rematch. The first fight was a great one, it warranted a rematch.

“We did that, but I beat Sandy twice. Now it’s time to move on to undisputed and that’s Lauren Price.”

Price, it would seem, has become a woman in demand. For it isn’t just Mikaela Mayer who fancies a fight with her in the future. Mayer’s old amateur team mate Claressa Shields does too. 

“I want to fight everybody,” Shields, 16-0 (3 KOs), told Sky Sports at the weekend. “We’ve got some new blood on the scene. I’ve seen Lauren Price fight and I was like, ‘Wow, pretty impressive.’”

Shields then went on to say that if the fight against Price were to happen it would have to take place at either junior-middleweight, where she won her first world title, or middleweight. 

“Yeah, that’s [154 pounds] the lowest I can get,” Shields, currently a heavyweight, confirmed. “And if she wants to fight at 160 [middleweight], too, don’t be afraid to eat a hamburger and come on up.”

With two of America’s best calling her out, it’s looking increasingly likely that Lauren Price’s 10th pro fight will be her biggest and most crucial one yet.