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NEW YORK – Ivana Habazin doesn’t even consider Claressa Shields the best, pound-for-pound, among active female fighters, let alone the greatest women’s boxer of all time.
That distinction, according to Habazin, belongs to Cecilia Braekhus. Habazin has boxed Braekhus, thus she speaks from experience.
Braekhus beat Habazin by unanimous decision in their 10-round welterweight title fight five years ago. Norway’s Braekhus won all 10 rounds on each of the three judges’ scorecards against Habazin, who’ll fight Shields for the unclaimed WBC and WBO 154-pound championships Friday night at Ocean Resort Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The Colombian-born Braekhus is 36-0, including nine knockouts. The undisputed welterweight champion has held at least one 147-pound championship since March 2009.
Shields, the self-proclaimed “Greatest Woman Of All Time” in women’s boxing, has won world titles at super middleweight and middleweight.
The undisputed 160-pound champion can become a three-division title-holder faster than any male or female in boxing history by beating Habazin (20-3, 7 KOs). Shields will attempt to become a three-weight world champion in just her 10th professional fight, two bouts before Ukraine’s Vasiliy Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs) and Japan’s Kosei Tanaka (15-0, 9 KOs) each accomplished that feat in their respective 12th fights.
Habazin isn’t impressed.
“For me, she’s not [the best] pound for pound,” Habazin told BoxingScene.com before a press conference Tuesday in Manhattan. “But right now, OK, media and she calls herself like this. … I can say Cecilia Braekhus has better technique than she has. So, I can say Cecilia is better than her.”
In fact, the 30-year-old Habazin believes there have been several female fighters better than Shields (9-0, 2 KOs), who won Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016.
“Of course I didn’t take that seriously,” Habazin said, “because if we can say who’s the GWOAT, we have definitely Ann Wolfe, Lucia Rijker, Christy Martin, Laila Ali. So, I think all of them [would have] beat her ass, so she’s not the GWOAT.”
Ali and Rijker retired undefeated. Wolfe lost once, but never got the fight she wanted most against Ali.
Martin completed her career with seven losses and three draws, including a knockout defeat to the much larger Ali. She still is considered one of the most important figures in the history of women’s boxing.
Meanwhile, Habazin has an opportunity to prove her opinions correct in a fight Showtime will televise as the main event of a tripleheader (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT).
Immediately before Shields and Habazin box, Showtime will air a 10-round welterweight fight that’ll pit Philadelphia’s Jaron Ennis (24-0, 22 KOs) against Kazakhstan’s Bakhtiyar Eyubov (14-1-1, 12 KOs, 1 NC). The telecast will begin with Alicia Napoleon-Espinosa (12-1, 7 KOs), of Lindenhurst, New York, and Elin Cederroos (7-0, 4 KOs), of Vasteraas, Sweden, in a 10-round fight for the Napoleon-Espinosa’s WBA super middleweight title and the vacant IBF 168-pound crown.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.