By: Sean Crose
Claressa Shields entered the ring in Atlanta on Saturday night to battle Kaye Scott for the WBC and WBA middleweight titles. Posting a record of 18-0 Shields was supposed to make easy work of the 5-1-1 Scott. And indeed it was hard for some to imagine Shields actually losing the scheduled 10,2 minute round fight. The truth was Shields was one of the most – if not the single most – widely well regarded practitioners in boxing. Fast, aggressive, and confident, she was practically impossible to write off.
A 31 years of age Shields had last fought in the heavyweight division, where she had won numerous heavyweight titles. Yet the fact that she moved from heavyweight down to middleweight for Saturday’s fight surprised no one, least of all Shields. For the Michigan native had a reputation of being the best no matter where she decided to fight. She was in every sense of the word an athletic oddity. For she was known as the GOAT, meaning greatest of all time, and that may have been true in Shield’s case. The truth was that no boxer in the world had been able to do all that well against her. At least that was true since she had become a professional after being a gold medalist. Again, she may indeed have been the greatest of all time.
Scott on the other hand had only won one of her last three bouts. She would have to do something extraordinary if she were to shock the world by beating Shields on Saturday. And that sort of thing would have required more than determination and confidence.. it would require skills no one had yet seen Scott put into action. Still this was indeed the sport of boxing which meant anything could happen. With that being said Shields seemed to be about as close as a sure bet as one could find.
Suffice it to say Shields closed the show with a sixth round stoppage of Scott. This was a crowd pleasing but unusual performance for Shields, who wasn’t known to close the show early. Indeed only three of her previous bouts hadn’t gone the distance. Shields had wanted to impress the live Atlanta audience, however, and impress the live audience Shields did. Scott was game and courageous of course, but she simply didn’t have the ability to give Shields any kind of real trouble whatsoever.
The truth was that Scott’s own corner stepped in and stopped the fight. Shields was just that dominant. Her aggressive strategy, punctuated by thudding body work, was simply too much for the competition to withstand. Which leads to an interesting question: Just who out there CAN defeat Shields at this point in the future Hall of Famer’s career? It’s hard to say especially when she takes opponents so seriously. “It was a hard camp,” Shields stated after via The Guardian. “I always tell myself that everything is easy work, but it was a really hard camp. I cut 38 pounds. I started 14 weeks ago at 198 and then I got down to 160. It was the most disciplined I’ve been since the Olympics, I feel like.”
Who, then, can defeat this combination of talent and work ethic? Lauren Price, Mikaela Mayer and Tammara Thibeault are all possible opponents. Perhaps though, it will end up being the two biggest enemies of great fighters…age, and youthful talent. Or, perhaps Shields will decide to do what too few fighters have ever done, and that’s decide to call a career while the going is good. Only a handful of legitimately great boxers have decided to go that route, but it’s likely a smart move to take, especially when it gets harder to train.
No matter what ends up happening there’s no doubt that Shields will go down as one of the greats. Will Shield’s go down as the greatest of all time, however? That remains to be seen. At the very least she’ll have come incredibly close.
