Claressa Shields avenges amateur loss to Savannah Marshall by unanimous decision in spirited battle
Claressa Shields finally got her revenge against Savannah Marshall … but it wasn’t easy.
Shields had to dig deep to defeat Marshall by a unanimous decision to become undisputed middleweight champion at O2 Arena in London on Saturday night.
The scores – 97-93, 97-93 and 96-94 – don’t really reflect how competitive the back-and-forth battle was.
Shields (13-0, 2 KOs) got off to a strong start, using speed and movement to outbox the bigger Marshall (12-1, 10 KOs) and land clean, eye-catching punches.
However, Marshall soon picked up steam and took the fight to Shields, plowing forward, throwing a high volume of punches and often pinning her more celebrated opponent against the ropes.
Shields did some good work in those situations, countering effectively. But Marshall undoubtedly earned some points for effective aggression.
That’s how it went for most of the 10 rounds, with both fighters working as hard as one another and each having positive moments in what was a difficult fight to score.
In the end, Shields evidently won over the judges with those aforementioned clean shots. When she landed punches to Marshall’s head or body, you couldn’t miss them.
Thus, Shields avenged her only loss as a boxer. She was outpointed by Marshall when she was 17 years old in the 2012 AIBA Women’s World Championships.
Shields has now become an undisputed champion in a third division, which is a record for men or women.
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