Claressa Shields may be the most decorated women’s boxer in a generation, but she is pursuing a chance to rectify the lone loss of her boxing career (professional and amateur) with all the hunger of an underdog.
WBC/WBA/IBF middleweight champion Shields is on track to face her bete noir Savannah Marshall, who once defeated Shields in the amateurs, in a middleweight unification bout sometime in the summer of 2022. Marshall, who is the WBO middleweight titlist, is the only fighter to own a win over Shields in boxing. Both fighters have been circling each other for years, but attempts to make the fight, according to Shields, were repeatedly rebuffed by the Marshall side.
“We’ve been pushing [for the Marshall fight],” Shields told SecondsOut in an interview. “We were in talks with Eddie Hearn, then all of a sudden we got close to a deal with Eddie Hearn and [Marshall] up and jumped to Sky Sports. We’re the ones chasing her. She’s not chasing us.
“We were talking to Eddie Hearn about getting a two-fight deal, and right when we were close to getting it done, she disappeared and now she’s with Sky sports. Boxxer and Sky Sports reached out and we didn’t turn down that conversation.”
The grudge match, which will put up for grabs all four middleweight titles, is now likely to happen as both Shields and Marshall are now under the same broadcast and promotional umbrella of Sky Sports in the UK. Shields is still co-promoted by Dmitry Salita.
Both boxers were initially scheduled to appear as co-headliners on a December card, but Marshall suffered an injury and the card itself was eventually canceled.
Shields (11-0, 2 KOs) is expected to make her UK debut on Feb.5 against mandatory challenger Ema Kozin. Shields is coming off a defeat as a mixed martial artist, a split decision loss to Abigail Montes in October in what was her second MMA bout.
With her attention now on boxing, Shields has ramped up the trash talking against Marshall (11-0, 9 KOs).
“I don’t need to fight her to prove that I’m better than her. I already know that,” Shields told SecondsOut. “I just really want to fight her because they’re trying to say that I’ve accomplished everything that I accomplished because she wasn’t available. She turned pro before me.
“She had her opportunities. She chose to fight lower opponents. Me and my team, Salita Promotions, sent her a contract in 2018, for her and me to fight at 168 pounds for the world titles I had then, but she didn’t want the fight. Now, a time has passed and she got her confidence up and she’s doing a whole bunch of talking. It’s not like we haven’t been wanting to make a fight with her. That’s one of the biggest fights in women's boxing, besides Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano. We’ve been pushing.”