Dmitriy Salita believes a Laila Ali-Claressa Shields fight would be beneficial for women’s boxing.
Even though Shields is 17 years younger and Ali hasn’t boxed in 13 years, Shields’ promoter feels that pay-per-view event still would attract a lot of positive attention to women’s boxing. Salita just doesn’t think the 42-year-old Ali is actually serious about coming back to fight Shields.
Salita suspects Ali is just using the idea of facing Shields to bring more awareness to her various business ventures.
“There has been zero indication from her camp on a real business level that there is any interest in her fighting Claressa Shields,” Salita told BoxingScene.com. “When people negotiate in public and say things only for the media, and there’s nothing happening in the background, that means they’re just talking. There’s 99 ways to say no and only one way to say yes. So, there have been no real discussions, in any way, to give any credence to what Laila Ali has been saying.”
As recently as last week, Ali emphasized that she is “definitely interested” in ending her retirement to battle the undefeated Shields (https://www.boxingscene.com/laila-ali-im-interested-fighting-shields-deal-just-right--148805). Salita still doesn’t buy it.
“It makes you believe that she’s using Claressa’s name and success,” Salita said, “and obviously her name and the potential of a fight, to keep herself relevant and keep herself in the news for whatever other business ventures she is engaged in. Don’t get me wrong – Laila did great when she was fighting and she’s the daughter of the greatest athlete of all time.
“But the issue is don’t sell something to boxing fans and to sports fans something that’s not gonna happen. It’s fake news, as they say. While I have a lot of people who are not usual boxing fans who’ve been asking me about this fight for several months, it’s fake news. There’s nothing there, nothing to indicate that Laila is serious in any way about pursuing this fight.”
Ali retired after a first-round stoppage of Gwendolyn O’Neil, an opponent she already had knocked out, in February 2007. She went undefeated (24-0, 21 KOs) in a seven-year pro career that began in 1999 and won world titles in the super middleweight and light heavyweight divisions.
Since her retirement, Ali has given birth to two children, become a talk show host and developed several businesses.
The 25-year-old Shields (10-0, 2 KOs), a two-time Olympic gold medalist, is a three-division champion just 3½ years into her pro career. The undisputed middleweight champion currently owns the WBC and WBO 154-pound championships.
Shields was scheduled to battle Quebec’s Marie-Eve Dicaire (17-0, no KOs), the IBF junior middleweight champ, on May 9 in Flint, Michigan, Shields’ hometown. Their title unification fight will be rescheduled once the COVID-19 pandemic ends.
The outspoken Shields seems resigned to the probability of a fight against Ali never coming together.
“Just got a call from my team,” Shields stated in Tweet she sent out Tuesday. “Laila Ali's team is playing games and don’t even wanna talk about a fight or a deal. So it’s wrap on that and I’ll be fighting world champion @EveDicaire my next fight in Early August! Don’t say nothing else to me about no damn Laila.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.