Mikaela Mayer is the only opponent Claressa Shields will consider dropping 20-plus pounds to fight.

If a marketable bout with Mayer, Shields’ former Olympic teammate, doesn’t materialize, Shields will remain in the heavyweight division. Shields explained after her impressive victory over Lani Daniels on Saturday night that she at least has found heavyweight contenders willing to fight her.

Excluding Mayer, the five-division champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist and self-professed “GWOAT” doesn’t believe any of the welterweights, junior middleweights or middleweights who talk about boxing her should be taken seriously. Shields’ search for willing opponents has led the Flint, Michigan, native to try to entice 47-year-old Laila Ali out of a retirement that has lasted since 2007.

Mayer, however, is 35, only five years older than Shields. The WBO welterweight champion has told The Ring and other outlets that she would move up from the 147-pound division to the junior middleweight limit of 154 to challenge Shields, The Ring’s No. 1 fighter pound-for-pound among women.

“I literally possess the best skills in women’s boxing,” Shields said during her post-fight press conference early Sunday morning. “And all these girls do all that chit chat, but nobody wants to meet me at ’60. I think Mikaela Mayer been saying something about meeting me at 154. If she’s serious, we can get cracking, but it gotta be a contract signed and it gotta give me enough time to get down there and make that weight healthy.

“Then I'm a go out there and show her that my skills is better compared to none. My skills are the best, and I’ll fight against her, too. But it’s not no other girl who’s at a smaller weight class who’s calling me out to meet me at 154 to fight, but Mikaela Mayer.”

Shields (17-0, 3 KOs) dominated Daniels (11-3-2, 1 KO) in a 10-round main event DAZN streamed from a sold-out Little Caesars Arena in downtown Detroit. She retained her IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO heavyweight titles by beating New Zealand’s Daniels on the cards of Pasquale Procopio (100-90), Don Trella (99-91) and Gerard White (99-91).

Shields, who weighed in at 174.5 pounds to battle Daniels, is sure she could get down to 154 for the first time since March 2021 to fight Mayer.

Las Vegas’ Mayer (21-2, 5 KOs) has had difficulty securing a welterweight title unification fight with England’s Lauren Price (9-0, 2 KOs), who owns The Ring, IBF, WBA and WBC 147-pound crowns. Mayer would prefer to become the undisputed welterweight champion, yet facing Shields would represent the biggest fight of her career.

“It’s nothing personal between me and Claressa,” Mayer told The Ring. “She is considered No. 1 pound-for-pound and I would just like to fight the best.”

Mayer, a former unified junior lightweight champion, is The Ring’s No. 1 contender for Price’s title. She is also ranked ninth on The Ring’s pound-for-pound list.

Shields, 30, is confident she would defeat Mayer, but respects her willingness to box a woman who has barely lost rounds, let alone fights, since her pro debut in November 2016.

“All these girls talk all this crap about me being at ’75, now at 175 and being heavyweight champ,” Shields said. “But when I was at 154, nobody would fight me. When I was at 160, I cleared the division, ’68, cleared the division. And then when I went back down to ’60 again, I was telling the girls at ’47 and ’54 let’s meet at a weight class and let’s fight.

“And honestly, all these girls was trying to like stall me out. If I didn’t make the decision to go up to weight classes where girls would fight me, I would just be sitting on the bench while all these other girls are fighting.”