Claressa Shields strongly believes more of her opponents would be gone if she had 60 more seconds.
Shields (10-0, 2 KOs), a three-division champion and two-time US gold medalist, is calling for women’s bouts to graduate from two-minute rounds to three-minute rounds so that she can fight on an equal playing field to her male counterparts.
“I can think of so many of my fights where I was putting girls through hell for two minutes. Then they get that one minute rest and come in refreshed. If it was three minutes, a lot of these girls would quit,” Shields told BoxingScene.com in an interview.
“I think it’s going to take one of the [female] champions to fight a three-minute round for 12 rounds. When they see that the top women fighters are willing to do it, everyone will get on board, and promoters would pay us fairly. They’ll understand that we’re putting the same amount of time as the men. Personally, me and my team have talked about it a few times. After my next fight with Marie Eve Dicaire, we are going to look forward to fighting three-minute rounds. We want to do everything for women’s boxing to have equality.”
The 25-year-old Shields, who hails from Flint, Michigan, approaches fights by wanting to definitively win the first minute of each round, and for the second minute, letting her hands go with intentions of punishing her opponent to a potential finish.
She is already whipping herself into shape for three-minute rounds by running three-minute sprints and hitting the bag for eight rounds at three minutes and thirty seconds a session.
“Proper preparation prevents poor performance,” said Shields. “I’m trying to make sure I’m in great shape for three minute rounds. It’s about balance. In three minutes, I can show my skills and be aggressive. I can box and I can bang.”
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist and member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011. He has written for the likes of the LA Times, Guardian, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Men’s Health and NFL.com. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com.