Claressa Shields beats Savannah Marshall to claim undisputed title in third weight class

Claressa Shields faced, by far, the biggest test of her incredible boxing career on Saturday. She went on the road to meet her biggest rival in front of 20,000 fans who were rooting hard for Savannah Marshall to not only win, but to knock her cold.

And Shields responded by boxing brilliantly and becoming the undisputed champion in a record third weight class. She won a unanimous decision over Marshall at the O2 Arena in London on Saturday with a brilliant display of boxing acumen, heart and conditioning.

Judges Luigi Boscarelli and Frank Lombardi had it 97-93 for Shields, while Steve Gray saw it 96-94 for Shields. Yahoo Sports scored it 97-93 for Shields.

After being undisputed champion at both super middleweight and super welterweight, Shields claimed Marshall’s WBO middleweight title and thus became the undisputed middleweight champion. No boxer, male or female, has ever done that.

“She’s a brilliant fighter and she has earned the title of ‘Greatest Woman of All-Time,’” Marshall said in the ring afterward.

That she did. Marshall may well be the hardest punching woman in the world, and she showed not only good power, but had plenty of fight IQ and was pushing the pace. The fight was fought at a frenetic pace because Shields was able to keep up.

Shields landed 174 of 471 punches over the 10 rounds, many of which were clean, hard power shots. Marshall connected on 132 of 391 shots, many of them very hard.

Marshall repeatedly pushed Shields to the ropes, but Shields seemed content to fight there and was able to fight her way off by going up and down and forcing Marshall to back up.

Shields praised Marshall’s performance and talent and scoffed at the idea that Marshall might retire because she’d lost. Marshall had spoken about that before the fight.

But she said she just refused to be bullied and went out and gave Marshall a dose of her own medicine.

“I dug down every round,” Shields said. “Every round she hit me with big shots, and I’d hit her back with a big shot. If she hit me to the body, I punched her to the body. There were times when I was against the ropes and I landed my shots, and there were times when she went up against the ropes and [landed hers]. But I did the most work today and landed the combinations.”

It was a tough environment to go into. The pro-Marshall crowd booed the American national anthem before the fight and roared every time Marshall did anything.

Those are the kinds of things that could influence judges, but Shields was so consistent and worked so hard that the judges couldn’t be swayed by the crowd noise.

It’s not fair or reasonable to call someone the greatest of all-time before their career is over, but after just 13 pro fights, Shields has a great leg up on making her bold predictions a reality.