Shields, Marshall as fired up for undisputed fight as they were before postponement
Same goes for Mayer and Baumgardner for unification bout
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The women’s championship unification doubleheader may have been delayed by a month, but the four fighters — Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall in the main event and Mikaela Mayer and Alycia Baumgardner in the co-feature — remain focused and confident as they head into the biggest fights of their careers.
Three-belt middleweight champion Claressa Shields and WBO titlist Savannah Marshall, longtime rivals, meet for the undisputed title and IBF/WBO junior lightweight titlist Mikaela Mayer squares off with WBC titlist Alycia Baumgardner in a three-belt unification bout Saturday (ESPN+ in the U.S., Sky Sports in the U.K., 2:30 p.m. ET) at The O2 in London.
The fights were initially scheduled for Sept. 10, also at The O2, but postponed the day before due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Promoter Boxxer was able to quickly reschedule the all-women’s card and none of the featured fighters seem to have lost their dislike for their opponent — attitudes that carried over to Thursday’s pre-fight news conference.
Shields has grown tired of the constant talk of Marshall’s vaunted punching power.
“Of course, we’ve got to talk about her punching power. She’s going to try to come out there and land a big shot,” Shields said during the testy news conference. “She may want to fight on the inside or on the outside. But she just wants to be able to touch me and land. That’s really all I see. But it’s a boxing match. I may get hit in there, but if she thinks she won’t get hit, then she’s mistaken.
“If she thinks she is a better boxer than me, she’s mistaken. But we’re going to let her think whatever she wants to think and do whatever she wants to do because I’m going to adapt and do whatever I have to do to win and make the fight easy.”
Three-division champion Shields (12-0, 2 KOs), 27, of Flint, Michigan, and Marshall (12-0, 10 KOs), 31, of England, have a long-running feud, making their fight one of the most anticipated in women’s boxing.
She gladly accepted an offer to fight Marshall in her home country.
“I’m not worried about Savannah Marshall. I came over here,” Shields said. “I’m a star in America. Don’t get it twisted. I didn’t have to come over here. Nobody was ever running from her. Nobody was ever scared to come over here and fight her. We said, ‘Let’s do it.’ And you better punch as hard as you say you can, because if you don’t have any punching power, it’s going to be a hard night for you.”
Shields was the undisputed middleweight champion before vacating the belt that Marshall eventually won. Shields is not only seeking to reclaim that belt but also to avenge her only boxing defeat. She was 77-1 as an amateur and won two Olympic gold medals but lost a 14-8 decision as a teenager to Marshall in a disputed 2012 bout.
Marshall sounded confident that she would repeat the amateur victory.
“I think she will come up short. I believe I’m a better boxer than Claressa,” Marshall said. “I believe I have always been. I cannot wait. Saturday couldn’t come quick enough. We had a 12-week camp and a five-week pushback. I’m just itching to get in there now.
“In the back of your mind, you’re petrified that I’m going to knock you out and that’s why you keep asking (me if I think I’m going to knock you out). Knockouts don’t matter? It will matter when you’re on your back looking at the lights.
“She can try to knock me out. But if you’ve got it, then you’ve got it. If you haven’t got it, then you haven’t. It is what it is. Why is it hard for you to knock someone out? If you land on someone, then you hurt them. If you land on them and you’ve got pillow fists, then they’re not going to go anywhere. There’s nothing left to say. I can’t wait for Saturday. Let’s get it on.”
Mayer vs. Baumgardner
Mayer and Baumgardner don’t have nearly as long of a running feud as Shields and Marshall, but they seem to have an even more intense dislike for each other and have trash talked each other for months.
Nothing changed on Thursday, when they jawed at each other and later had to be separated.
“This is huge for me. I’ve said that I wanted to become undisputed,” Mayer said. “There’s a reason why I’ve called out Alycia and why I’ve called out all the champions. I think that I have been pushing for the biggest fights possible. But honestly, I don’t think you could have put a card like this five years ago. It’s really shown how far women’s boxing has come.
“Everything has been very strategic. That’s how I’ve been trained by Coach Al (Mitchell). We go in there with a cool head and execute what we’ve been working on in the gym. He hates all this. He’s sitting here shaking his head at this whole thing. He wants to get to the gym. We have to go to the gym after this, and that’s what he’s focused on. My team keeps me cool. They keep me calm and focused on the goal.”
Mayer (17-0, 5 KOs), 32, of Los Angeles, who was Shields’s 2016 U.S. Olympic teammate, easily outpointed Ewa Brodnicka in October 2020 to win the WBO title and two fights later, in November 2021, she won a clear decision over Maiva Hamadouche to take her IBF belt in a slugfest. Then Mayer routed Jessica Han in April and now is going after yet another belt against Baumgardner.
“I’m expecting to deliver the performance of my life,” Mayer said. “Contrary to what she’s saying, I am constantly getting better. I still don’t even feel like I’ve hit my peak. I want to put it all together in this fight. I want to embarrass her. I want to make her sound stupid because she said a lot leading up to this fight.”
Baumgardner (12-1, 7 KOs), 28, of Bingham Farms, Michigan, knocked out Terri Harper in the fourth round last November to win the WBC title and defended it by shutout decision against Edith Soledad Matthysse in April before turning her attention to Mayer.
“You have two women who don’t care for each other and who are ready to bang it out Saturday night. My confidence is triggered by her. Everyone who has fought her has come to fight her and go back home. She has a fighter in front of her who is willing to fight her, who is telling her what it is, that I will beat her, that I will break her jaw. Whatever it is, I am in her face. She does not like it. So, this is confidence that we are dealing with. It’s not really an anger standpoint. I’m a competitor at heart. I’ve been doing this since I was an eight-year-old girl. I’m excited to be at this stage and to be in a unification fight.
“There’s no respect. At the end of the day, this is the fight game. This girl is trying to beat me. I’m trying to beat here. I have great sportsmanship, but I don’t respect her. She talks too much. And when somebody talks too much, you’ve got to shut them up, and that’s what I’m going to do on Saturday night.”
Photos: Lawrence Lustig/Boxxer
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Well, at about 48 hours before the fight Shields’s entourage hasn’t yet attacked Marshall’s trainer, so that’s a good sign.
Shields accepted fighting Marshall in the UK but she wisely refused to fight Marshall in her Newcastle fortress - so the fight is in London (O2).
Shields has far more experience in terms of rounds fought and they're mostly at a high level.
I think Marshall should have had a few more fights to increase her experience at a higher level before fighting Shields.
IMO Shields should win - using her speed to get inside Marshall's long arms and working close up. However if Shields gets sloppy Marshall certainly has the punch to stop her - and got to admit that's what I'd like to happen as I can't stand the way Shields behaves - she has zero humility and imo is a bad example to the young amateur girls just starting out in the sport.