Sandy Ryan defends his WBO welterweight title against Mikaela Mayer later this evening. | Photo by Mark Robinson/Getty Images

Sandy Ryan has a upcoming title defense tonight, but it’s a little more than business for her.

With Sandy Ryan set to make a defense of her WBO welterweight title against Mikaela Mayer tonight on ESPN, the pre-fight build up has gotten a bit personal for both fighters with more than a couple disagreements over Ryan coming to America to train with Mayer’s team — which Mayer felt was stepping on her toes.

Mayer hasn’t been shy about making their disagreements known publicly, even reading aloud text messages between them during a recent press conference, and Ryan says she now sees Mayer in a new light and isn’t fond of the person she is.

“The way you insult me as a person,” Ryan told Mayer in a joint interview with Sky Sports, “I don’t respect her as a human being. I think she’s trash and she’s a grown woman and the way she speaks, it’s just trash to me.”

Mayer would respond by saying that she’s only exposing the truth of the matter between them, and urged her to own her misdeeds.

“I will own you in the ring,” Ryan responded. “It won’t be going the distance.

“Some of the things she’s said, it’s personal,” she added. “That’s why she’s going to get a beating.”

So with both fighters now engaged in a war of words that makes it more than just a world title fight, both are promising to bring the action to break the will of the other once that first bell rings.

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