Natasha Jonas may be giving away a couple of inches in height and a few years in age to Mikalea Mayer but the IBF welterweight champion thinks that her strength will be the telling factor when she defends her title against the American on February 20th. 

Having won the WBC interim lightweight title in her last outing, Mayer is stepping up 12lb to challenge Jonas and the Liverpudlian believes that the former super featherweight champion may be in for a nasty surprise. 

Jonas can certainly speak from experience. She successfully made an even bigger jump than the one Mayer is taking.

After drawing with Terri Harper in a bid for the WBC super featherweight title in 2020, Jonas stepped up to 135lbs and challenged a peak Katie Taylor for the undisputed lightweight crown, losing a razor close split decision after a thrilling battle. After a keep busy fight at super lightweight, Jonas jumped all the way up to super welterweight where she was too fast, too skillful and too heavy handed and hoovered up the IBF, WBO and WBC titles within nine months. Last July she dropped down to the welterweight division and stopped Kandi Wyatt to win the IBF belt.

Having been through the process herself, Jonas is ideally placed to appreciate the benefits of fighting at a higher weight but also believes people underestimate just how different it feels and how much thought and effort goes in to putting on the weight correctly.

“I think it’s carrying the weight around. People just assume that it’s a case of training a little bit less - still hard but you can ease off a little bit - and eating more,” Jonas told BoxingScene.com.

“I think that that’s what people think it is but there's a lot of science involved to be able to hold that weight and still perform and have the energy and correct stores of energy to be able to perform how you did.

“If you think you’re going to be able to perform at 147lbs the same way that you performed at 130lbs, that’s not gonna happen.”

Most fighters these days compete in the wrong weight division. Being big at the weight is seen as an advantage but the toll of spending weeks boiling down to an unnatural weight is often disregarded. They do it simply because everybody else does.

Often, the scales can become just as formidable challenge as an opponent so it shouldn’t be a surprise that most fighters generally perform better when they give themselves one less battle to fight.

Making weight can also be morally as well as physically draining. Getting home after a hard day’s training and having to measure out the exact amount of chicken or weigh every gram of rice can be a soul destroying exercise. 

Having those extra few pounds in hand makes preparing for a fight a much more pleasurable experience. It sounds obvious but a boxer who can walk into a gym full of energy and ready to spend time working on skills and tactics is going to be a happier, better fighter than one who forces themselves out of bed to spend another day battling the scales.

Jonas thinks Mayer will benefit from the move up from lightweight but wonders how she will react when the realization sets in that - for maybe the first time in her career - she isn’t the physically stronger fighter. 

“I agree with what she said at the press conference. Even for me, the first four or five weeks of a camp were always about making a weight. Then you go on to the technical work. Now, I enjoy going through the process of having a whole camp to work on specific things because I don’t have to worry about weight. I know I’m going to make weight,” she said.

“That part of its great but you have to be able to get your body used to carrying that around for ten rounds. We’ve both been at super feather. It’s like saying, ‘See those ankle weights? Put those on. Put a [weighted] vest on and put these two arm weights on and go and do what you used to do.’ It’s impossible.

“I think she will gain a bit of power by having a bit more weight behind her,” Jonas continued. “For me personally, I’ve had those bigger girls. I’ve had the [Chirs] Namus, the [Patricia] Berghult and the [Marie Eve] Dicaire fights. Most notably Dicaire. That was probably the first time at a heavier weight where I felt the physical difference. I don’t think she’s experienced that.

“I might be the smaller in stature, but I definitely believe I’m the stronger. I’m naturally the bigger, stronger person and I genuinely believe that. Whereas she’s normally the big girl at super feather - she’s still a big girl at 147 - but it’s the physicality. I just don’t believe she’s stronger than me in any situation.”