Claressa Shields is a unique fighter. An undisputed champion, she is a multi-weight titlist who has also competed in MMA and who will go for a title in a fourth division later this month.
She will challenge Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse for the WBC heavyweight championship in Detroit.
The Olympic middleweight gold medal has only been won by two women, Shields in 2012 and 2016, and most recently Wales’ Lauren Price, who triumphed at the Tokyo Games.
Price dropped down to welterweight after the Olympics and is only seven bouts into her professional career, but has won the inaugural women’s British title and the WBA world title already.
Shields does not rule out Price becoming one of her future rivals.
“It’s hard to put anything past Olympic champions. She won the Olympics 2021,” Shields told Sky Sports.
“I feel like when you’ve been all over the world and you’ve boxed and you’ve won World championships, it’s kind of destined for you to be great in the pros. I wish her the best of luck.”
They are not on a collision course in the immediate future. Price has plenty of ambitions to realise at welterweight and Shields is moving up in weight for the Lepage-Joanisse fight.
But heavyweight is what the WBC calls its 12st 7lbs division, i.e. light-heavyweight (the WBO light-heavyweight title will also be on the line in their fight).
Shields has operated across several weight classes, super-welter and super-middle included, but is a natural middleweight.
Price’s greatest amateur successes were at middleweight, where she won World and European gold medals as well as the Olympic Games. Along the way, she also beat a light-heavyweight World champion at 75kgs.
Shields doesn’t think their current weight classes will necessarily keep them apart.
“She won the Olympics at 165lbs (75kgs) just as I did – two times – and if she ever wants to fight I would love to fight against her too,” Shields said.
“I believe anything is possible and I really want to fight anybody that wants to fight me. So if Lauren Price keeps winning and comes to 154lbs, 160, 168, we can fight and prove who’s the best Olympic champion.”
Shields’ great rival is another Briton, Savannah Marshall. The American beat Marshall in their 2022 grudge match. But Marshall is now also competing in MMA as she pursues another clash with Shields.
“I beat her in the UK with 20,000 of her fans. She needs to come to America and fight me in front of 20,000 of my fans and let’s see if she can handle being booed and her national anthem being booed and people telling her she sucks!” Shields declared.
“I would love to fight her again and prove that I’m not just one time better than you, I’m two times better than you either inside the cage and definitely inside the ring. It really doesn’t matter which one.”
But first Shields has a more immediate task, winning yet another accolade against Lepage-Joanisse.
“I’m going for my fourth division,” she said. “It’s going to be big and it’s going to be history-making.”
