At only 27 years old, American boxer Claressa Shields (already) poses as the best in history, with a harvest of titles and still being undefeated at the professional level. A few hours before her historic fight against the English Savannah Marshall at the O2 Arena in London, the only one who beat her at amateur level, the double Olympic champion, on whom all the spotlights are trained, had to fight against all odds to get there.
” Those who have known me since childhood know that I barely spoke until I was 12. Today, it’s just the opposite: I feel like I’ve eaten a radio set! “. Claressa Shields is like that, without filters. She bursts out laughing, gestures with her arms, and shows her muscles, displaying an XXL personality for an athlete who, full of self-confidence, fight after fight, marks – with great blows – the history of the discipline.
Today at the top of the bill of women’s boxing and a few hours from her shock in London against Savannah Marshall, Shields had to fight headwinds, from her birth in Flint, Michigan. ” I grew up without having electricity every day at home, the winters were harsh because we didn’t always have heating and I was abused as a childshe says. It also allowed me to forge my character, and to put myself in mind that I had to do everything to build myself a better life and live my dreams. “.
An early phenomenon
His dream, then, are gloves and rings. ” My father Bo was an amateur boxer. I had posters in my room of Muhamed Ali, of Mike Tyson, and I studied all the techniques to progress quickly, to become the best boxer of all time. It’s been my state of mind since I fell in love with this sport, I want my name to be synonymous with history, the best in history, period. “, she asserts.
She discovers the rings at the age of 10, and faces boys already much older than her. But Shields is not shy. The trainer of his first local boxing club makes him understand after a few months that his potential is already far too high to remain in the area, after having knocked out dozens of young people from the club who wanted to rub shoulders with the phenomenon. “It was funny to see that the boys wanted to knock me down, but one after the other, they quickly understood that they shouldn’t get hot on me “, she laughs again.
Double Olympic champion
Her progress is dazzling, and at only 17, she validates her ticket for the London Olympics despite a defeat at the 2012 World Championships against…Savannah Marshall, her only setback of her entire career so far! At the 2012 Olympics, “Hurricane” Shields won a gold medal. ” The first step of my dream “, she recalls.
After his London coronation, Shields’ meteoric rise continues. She chained amateur victories, and continued to fill her trophy cabinet: gold medalist at the 2014 Worlds, title at the Pan American Games in 2015 and above all an incredible gold double at the Worlds-Olympic Games in 2016. When I started winning titles, it was like opening a box of biscuits: I started taking one, then two, then three and I can’t stop! But I had to take it to the next level she exclaims. At the end of 2016, she turned professional, after a record of 64 wins for only 1 defeat as an amateur. Shields’ story takes on another dimension.
Unstoppable among professionals
Her first fight with the pros is against the United States champion, Franchon Crews-Dezurn, is a formality. And she does not slow down for her following fights, winning each time. She continues her harvest of titles with the IBF and WBC belts in super middleweight, then the WBA and WBO titles in middleweight, becoming in 2018 the first boxer to win in two different categories with less than ten pro fights on the clock. . She thus breaks the record of the Ukrainian Vasyl Lomachenko.
She won all the possible titles in the categories, no one stopped her, and presented a record of 12 wins-0 losses before the clash of the titans against Savannah Marshall, the world number 2 (12 wins-0 loss, also) of the September 10, 2022.” I am happy to return to London, to the site of my Olympic title, ten years later. I come here for “to buckle the buckle” from London, and show Marshall and the other boxers that I’m the “boss”, the boss. I’m going to dot the i’s, and establish my place on the throne a little more, “, she says.
Shields does not want to go into detail and continue his forward march towards his ultimate goal. ” I’ll keep going until my body can’t take anymore, and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon, I want to be a legend, the “She Ali“, the female version of Muhammad Ali “, specifies the one who leads in parallel a career in mixed martial arts (MMA). But his goals don’t stop at the rings. Attracting sponsors in large numbers, Shields also wants to use her notoriety to attract more and more fans, and bring even more attention to women’s boxing. ” If my performances help bring more sponsors, better TV rights and more money to our sport and the women who practice it, I would be more than happy. “, concludes the one who likes to present herself as the GWOAT: Greatest Woman Of All Time. The greatest lady in history.