LAS VEGAS – Mikaela Mayer thinks what happened to Sandy Ryan “sucks.”

The WBO women’s welterweight champion knows she doesn’t owe Ryan an apology, though, for what occurred a couple hours before they fought September 27. Ryan and her team have stated that they think someone aligned with Mayer tossed a can of red paint on her pant leg and exposed torso as she exited her Manhattan hotel the night she and Mayer went at it inside The Theater at Madison Square Garden.

Mayer adamantly denied any involvement in the incident since fight night.

Kay Koroma, Mayer’s former trainer, helped Ryan prepare for their first fight, though he did not work her corner that night. Koroma will work Ryan’s corner for their rematch Saturday night at Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

While Mayer admits she wasn’t pleased that her former trainer helped prepare her opponent, she stressed that it would’ve been foolish for her to encourage anyone to do something like that to Ryan soon before they were to earn six-figure purses. The New York Police Department investigated the incident, but the masked male who jumped into a waiting car after throwing paint on Ryan has not been caught.

“I have no idea who did it,” Mayer told The Ring. “I don’t know if it was a crazy fan of mine or if it was her team. But I don’t know her schedule. I don’t know when she is coming and going from her hotel. Her team does. And then Coach [Koroma] was in the dressing room, screaming at her to pull out of the fight. ‘Let’s go! Let’s get the f*ck out of here!’ That’s so not Coach K. He was like, ‘Let’s get the f*ck out of here! Man, f*ck this!’ It was almost like his plan didn’t work. It was weird. Now, I don’t know what his motive would’ve been to do that. Maybe he didn’t want the fight. I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Ryan downplayed the incident during their press conference Thursday and most interviews she has done during the promotion of their 10-round rematch at Fontainbleau’s BleuLive Theater.

Mayer commended Ryan for blocking out the incident once the opening bell rang for what emerged as a very competitive, fan-friendly fight. The behavior of Ryan’s team once the former champion came to the venue struck Mayer as quite peculiar, though.

“I saw the little clip of her,” Mayer recalled of Ryan’s pre-fight chat with ESPN’s Mark Kriegel. “I don’t know, I guess she was blaming me. I guess that’s easier for her to do in her brain. Like, ‘Oh, this was Mikaela,’ so she can say she fought angry. But that’s up to her team. Her team should’ve kept her cool, calm and collected. She looked the same to me [during the fight], but she was obviously mad at me because she didn’t touch gloves with me.”

The former IBF/WBO 130-pound champion also feels more has been made of the controversy than necessary.

“The way they threw it, it was like right on her leg,” Mayer said. “I just think it was blown out of proportion. It was not like someone literally drove by and threw paint all over her face and sh!t. They came up behind her, if you watch the video, and threw it on her leg. And yeah, that sucks. But it’s not like – come on, we’re fighters. You didn’t have to go strip your clothes, take a nude photo shoot. Your team is freaking out. I don’t think it was a little paint on her leg that freaked her out. It was her team.

“My team would’ve been like, ‘Hey, go wash off. You’re fine. We’ve got a job to do. Let’s f--king go!’ Coach K and her team made a big deal about it. They took her clothes off, they took photos, they posted it, they freaked out about it. Like that’s gonna mess you up more than a little bit of paint, when your team isn’t keeping cool, right?”

Las Vegas’ Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) and England’s Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) will headline ESPN’s doubleheader Saturday night (10 p.m. ET; 7 p.m. PT). Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs, 1 NC), of Conyers, Georgia, will make his first defense of the WBO welterweight title against Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) in the 12-round opener of ESPN’s telecast.