'No evidence leading back to me' - Mayer on Ryan paint attack

WBO welterweight champion Mikaela Mayer faces Briton Sandy Ryan in a Las Vegas rematch on Saturday.

In her BBC Sport column, American Mayer talks about the events leading up to victory in last September's first fight in New York when Ryan was hit by a can of red paint before leaving for the venue.

On Friday, Ryan will address the controversy and rivalry between the pair.

I was in my room and we were starting to walk to the elevator, waiting for the go-ahead from the team to say we could go down because we were at the same hotel as Sandy Ryan.

Sandy was out there first waiting for her car so we stood by the elevator and my nutritionist said to wait because she hasn't got in the car yet.

My nutritionist was looking at her phone and was like, 'oh my god, someone just threw paint on Sandy'. We were all taken aback but I didn't understand that I was apparently the culprit.

I got in the car but didn't really understand the extent of it until I got to the arena and online there was a photo of Sandy, who was stripped down with red paint on her. ESPN came in to see me and apparently I'm being blamed for the attack.

Everyone who knows me, knows that would be out of character for me - it's not my style. I expected her to try to blame me. I was her rival all week but there were also other things going on.

Sandy has already said flyers attacking her were put up around the hotel and city.

You can't just point a finger when there is no evidence leading back to me. I was upstairs waiting to walk down for the fight of my life.

I didn't know what time she was going to be down there or that she was going first. The only people who knew were her team - maybe she should look inside her own circle.

The incident took me by surprise but I was in fight mode and it didn't happen to me, so I wasn't flustered.

If someone had thrown paint on me I would have slapped paint on the ass of my fight shorts and got on with it.

I was concerned that she was going to pull out - her team were really getting her going about it.

There was a clip of her coach Kay Koroma in the locker room screaming at her to pull out of the fight which I thought was super suspicious. That was weird to me and out of character for him.

I really don't think it was the paint that threw her off her game but her team, who made it a bigger deal than it had to be.

Obviously I don't want that to happen and I hope it doesn't happen going into this fight. It could have been called off and, after two years of busting my butt to get back in that position, that was the last thing I wanted.

As for 'paint-gate' being used to promote the rematch, I was surprised the Top Rank team used the paint on the promotion posters - but this is entertainment.

I didn't have any say in it. If I had done anything like that, my manager would have had my neck as he tries to keep me professional.

I didn't know about it until the poster came out and I said, 'do they have red paint on Sandy"Graphic image of, from left to right, Alex Albon, George Russell, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso and Oliver Bearman. It is on a blue background with 'Fan Q&A' below the drivers " loading="lazy" src="https://image.staticox.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fichef.bbci.co.uk%2Face%2Fstandard%2F480%2Fsprodpb%2F7ff9%2Flive%2Fd42302e0-34b3-11f0-8519-3b5a01ebe413.jpg" width="385" height="216" class="ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950"/>