British teenage star Tiah-Mai Ayton will have her second professional fight this weekend on the undercard of Pat McCormack’s world title eliminator against Miguel Parra, live on DAZN.
Ayton, 19, amassed a perfect 21-0 amateur record and won on her professional debut inside three rounds in June.
It is still early days for the Matchroom fighter, who previously competed in kickboxing and Muay Thai, but Ayton has lofty ambitions and wants to climb to the top of women’s boxing as quickly as possible.
“I want to be undisputed in bantamweight and super bantamweight and then it goes featherweight and super featherweight,” Ayton told the BBC.
“I want to do those four categories, and I want to be undisputed in all four. It’s high expectations but I think I can do it.”
Ayton believes she can rule multiple weight classes, while she is also focused on her “new challenge” of becoming the youngest undisputed champion of the four-belt era.
But what is the current record and how long does she have to beat it? Here, we pick out the five youngest fighters to achieve undisputed status as Ayton chases history.
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5. Alycia Baumgardner (28)
Alycia Baumgardner burst onto the UK scene when she travelled over from the US to stop Terri Harper in the fourth round of their WBC super featherweight title fight in November 2021.
The following year she unified the division by winning a razor-thin split decision against her domestic rival, Mikaela Mayer.
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Baumgardner still needed to add the WBA belt to her collection to become undisputed champion and she did that in her next fight with a unanimous decision win over Elhem Mekhaled.
That victory came three months before her 29th birthday and Baumgardner defended her titles by exacting revenge on Christina Linardatou – the only woman to beat her – in July 2023.
It was subsequently announced that Baumgardner had failed a drug test on fight week, but following an investigation the WBC deemed she was “not guilty of intentional ingestion or consumption of a banned substance for performance enhancement purposes.”
Baumgardner’s temporary suspension was lifted and she signed with Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) earlier this year. She is still the undisputed super bantamweight champion after defending her titles on the undercard of Katie Taylor’s trilogy bout with Amanda Serrano in July.
4. Jermain Taylor (26)
Jermain Taylor won a bronze medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and won his first 23 professional fights to earn a shot at undisputed middleweight king, Bernard Hopkins, in July 2005.
Taylor had rarely been troubled during the early stages of his professional career but had to figure out a way to get past the wily veteran.
In a close tactical affair, it was Taylor who got the nod as he won a split decision to snatch away Hopkins’ middleweight titles less than a month before he turned 27.
Taylor was not undisputed champion for long as he had to give up the IBF strap to pursue a rematch with Hopkins, which he won via unanimous decision.
He remained the man at 160lbs until he was finally beaten by Kelly Pavlik in September 2007, and he lost the rematch five months later.
Taylor was famously stopped by Carl Froch with just 14 seconds left on the clock as he challenged the Brit for his WBC super middleweight belt in 2009.
This heartbreaking loss meant Taylor narrowly missed out on becoming a two-weight champion, but he did drop back down to middleweight to regain the IBF title in his final fight when he outpointed Australia’s Sam Soliman in 2014.
3. Claressa Shields (24)
Claressa Shields refers to herself as the GWOAT (Greatest Woman Of All Time), and it’s easy to see why.
As an amateur, she won gold at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics all by the age of 21. There was no slowing down when she turned professional.
Shields won her first world titles in just her fourth bout up at super middleweight and then dropped down a division to become a two-weight champion two fights later.
She set her sights on being crowned undisputed middleweight champion and achieved this in April 2019, just weeks after turning 24, when she beat Christina Hammer on points.
Not content with just ruling one weight class, Shields has since become undisputed champion at super welterweight and heavyweight, proving that she is the best across multiple divisions.
Shields has still only lost once in her whole career – amateur and professional – and avenged that defeat against Britain’s Savannah Marshall in 2022.
She delivered another dominant display to retain her heavyweight crown in July and has since called for a fight with Muhammad Ali’s daughter, Laila.
2. Devin Haney (23)
Devin Haney made his professional debut just days after his 17th birthday and had his first four fights in Mexico.
It did not take long to realise he was a special talent and he became WBC interim lightweight champion when he was still only 20 by stopping Zaur Abdullaev in 2019.
Haney was later upgraded to full champion and defended his belt four times before earning a shot at undisputed against George Kambosos Jr following his shock win over Teofimo Lopez.
Haney was just 23 when he travelled to Australia to outpoint Kambosos Jr in June 2022 in his own backyard and he repeated the trick four months later in a rematch.
The American superstar jumped up to super lightweight to win another belt the following year before he suffered a shock defeat by Ryan Garcia in April 2024.
The result was later changed to a no contest after Garcia failed a drug test, but Haney took a year out afterwards following the punishing contest that saw him knocked down three times.
He returned in May to beat Jose Ramirez on points and will get his shot at becoming a three-weight champion when he faces WBO welterweight titlist Brian Norman Jr in November.
1. Gabriela Fundora (22)
Top spot is taken by the American flyweight Gabriela Fundora.
She got her first title fight in just her 12th outing and stopped Arely Mucino to take home the IBF belt.
Following two successful defences, Fundora went for all the marbles against Gabriela Celeste Alaniz last November.
Aged just 22, Fundora made an emphatic statement by knocking out her opponent in the seventh round. She picked up another stoppage win in April to move to 16-0.
If Ayton is to beat Fundora’s record she has about three years to get the job done, with her journey towards glory set to continue on Saturday night.
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