The self-acclaimed G.W.O.A.T (Greatest Woman of All Time), Claressa Shields, is living up to her name. On the weekend of International Women’s Day, Shields became the first boxer, man, or woman, to become a two-division undisputed world champion after beating Canada’s Marie-Eve Dicaire.
Per ESPN, Shields took home the title by a unanimous decision with all three judges scoring the fight 100-90 after she landed 116 shots out of the 409 punches. Dicaire landed 31 of 263, with Shields landing double-digit punches in seven of the 10 rounds.
The fight between the pair was also the first women’s pay-per-view special card event in two decades. It was a risk Shields was willing to take which paid off massively. Her take-home was dependent on the sales giving up guaranteed money. She walked into the fight with her WBC and WBO junior middleweight titles which she retains after winning all eleven of her professional fights and claimed the vacant WBA world title alongside Dicaire’s IPF crown.
The 25-year-old’s amateur career was astounding as well. She is the first American boxer to win back-to-back medals at the Olympics; two gold medals for that matter, one in London and the other in Rio.
In her amateur career, she won 77 fights of her 78 fights. The one fight she lost as an amateur was to Britain’s Savannah Marshall and even with that, Shields has called out Marshall, saying she is ready for a revenge match. Shields adds that Marshall got a lucky win when they were kids.
The G.W.O.A.T is certainly taking boxing to a whole new level and according to The Sportsman, she may not just be unbeatable but the best female boxer we have ever seen with the confidence to match her skills.
“Muhammad Ali is first, and Claressa Shields is second. I am the greatest woman of all time, and 98 percent of men in the world can’t beat me,” she said in the build-up to the Dicaire fight and then proceeded to demolish her in the ring even though she hoped for a knockout.
“She never really wanted to win the fight. She just wanted to be able to say she went all 10, which I don’t have that kind of mentality. To me, that’s weak, and I’d rather go down on my shield any day and give it a good fight. But she wanted to stay away. She wanted to hold. She wanted to elbow and do all that crazy stuff. I felt like I was winning the fight, but I didn’t get to display what I wanted to display,” Shields said of the fight.
Shields is a trailblazer who is always up for a new challenge. She continues to use her platform as an athlete and influencer to fight for justice and equality for women.
“For a woman to be an athlete, we have to work a bit harder. Especially to be a top athlete…We have to continue to fight. Women are never gonna just stop doing sports, they can’t make us disappear. As soon as people realize that, they’ll give us our just due and we’ll be able to flourish better and they’ll stop holding women in sports back,” said Shields.
