Sandy Ryan loses WBO title after paint attack on street, says she ‘shouldn’t have fought’

A bizarre situation on Friday resulted in WBO welterweight champion Sandy Ryan losing her belt after getting splashed with paint outside her New York City hotel.

Ryan’s promoters at Matchroom Boxing shared a video of the aftermath of the attack, showing a picture of Ryan with a large amount of red paint on her hip and thigh. A staffer in the video speculated the paint thrower could have been working for Ryan’s opponent that night, Mikaela Mayer.

“We walked out the hotel to go the arena and someone threw a can of paint at Sandy Ryan,” the Matchroom staffer said. “Literally ran out the hotel, must have been, I don’t know, a team member from the other side, threw a can of paint. She had to go get changed. Not a good start.”

The night did not have a good end either. Ryan lost her title in a majority decision at Madison Square Garden, though CompuBox paints the fight as evenly matched with Mayer out-landing Ryan 186-185 in total punches.

The next morning, Ryan shared a more intimate picture showing the paint on her body, along with a statement in which she said she should have called off the fight and explained the reason she did not. She also said her camp has obtained surveillance video of the attack and is in contact with the NYPD.

Ryan’s full statement:

“Still trying to come to terms with what happened last night, i know I shouldn’t have fought after I was attacked leaving my hotel but I couldn’t let them win like that. I was fighting off empty and still felt I won the fight. We have obtained the CCTV and are in contact with the NYPD. Pretty obvious what happened and the truth will be set free shortly. You tried to ruin my career but trust me it’s only just begun”

There was bad blood in the Ryan-Mayer fight even before the paint attack. The drama began when Ryan hired trainer Kay Koroma in September of 2023, when he had already been working with Mayer for nearly a decade. Mayer objected to him working with a fighter she described as “my competition” to ESPN.

Mayer then dropped Koroma after her split decision loss to Natasha Jonas in January and began working with Kofi Jantuah.

Tying that hostility to the paint attack is only speculation, but Ryan and her people clearly seem to believe it was a mind game gone too far. At the very least, it could be grounds for a rematch given that Ryan had her pre-fight plans fall apart.