Mikaela Mayer’s lightweight debut against Christina Linardatou will take place as the co-feature fight on the Joe Joyce-Zhilei Zhang card in England on April 15, sources told ESPN.
The fight will be at Copper Box Arena in the Hackney Wick section of London, the first time Mayer will be fighting since she lost her WBO and IBF titles in a split-decision loss to Alycia Baumgardner in England in October.
The fight will be on ESPN+, and a source said a formal announcement will be made soon.
It will be the second straight fight for Mayer in the United Kingdom, where she has grown in popularity over the past three years because of her fighting and also her commentary work for Sky Sports between her own fights.
Mayer, a 32-year-old native of Los Angeles, had never fought outside of the United States before her fight with Baumgardner. Mayer (17-1, 5 KO) decided to move up in weight class after Baumgardner decided not to give Mayer a rematch and Hyun-Mi Choi decided not to fight her.
The WBA has since named Choi the champion in recess in the division, which allowed Baumgardner to become the undisputed champion at 130 pounds after she beat Elhem Mekhaled on Feb. 4 in New York, a fight Mayer attended.
Mayer instead has moved to lightweight, where the undisputed champion is Katie Taylor.
Mayer will have a tough fight against Linardatou, the former WBO junior welterweight champion and the only person to have beaten Baumgardner as a professional. Linardatou’s two losses came to Taylor and Delfine Persoon, both in title fights.
Linardatou (14-2, 6 KO) took a two-year absence from the ring to have a child and returned in July 2022, winning a unanimous decision over Aleksandra Vujovic before taking the fight with Mayer.