FLINT, Mich. – Claressa Shields wanted to make history on Friday night at various levels. The first part she dealt with before she even entered the ring, as the main attraction of a female pay-per-view card.
The second part she took care of in the ring in a similar way to all her previous fights. Shields defeated Marie-Eve Dicaire by unanimous decision to become the first boxer of the four-band era (since 2004), male or female, to be an undisputed champion in two divisions. Shields retained his junior WBC and WBO middleweight titles while claiming the Dicaire IBF crown and the vacant WBA world title.
“I did it,” said Shields in the ring after the fight, which marked the first time in 20 years that a women’s boxing match was the main event in a pay-per-view.
All three judges scored the match 100-90, a clean sweep for the fighter who calls herself the greatest of all time. Shields landed 116 out of 409 punches, and Dicaire landed 31 out of 263. Shields landed two punches in seven of the ten rounds.
After the fight, Shields (11-0, 2 KO’s) was asked if she would drop to 147 pounds to fight Katie Taylor. Shields laughed and praised Taylor as a fighter.
“They had to pay me a lot of money to lose my butt and drop to 147,” said Shields, adding that she would do that for a million dollars. Shields then called Savannah Marshall, the only fighter who beat her as an amateur, and said that Marshall is “scared of me”.
Fighting in his hometown, Shields, twice an Olympic gold medalist, was dominant against Dicaire (17-1). When she entered the ring, most of the more than 300 fans at the Dort Financial Center Arena kept their camera phones to record the event.
They stayed for most of the fight, getting taller in the sixth and seventh rounds, when Shields started hitting more forceful punches. One of the punches baffled Dicaire at the beginning of the sixth, attracting applause. After the fight, Shields said she was elbowed and headbutted a few times.
After the fight was over, Shields held all the belts in his arms and around his waist. She thanked the people in Flint and said that when she was a child, “never in a million years” she thought she would be battling a pay-per-view card in her hometown.
Shields said it will take him a week to celebrate his birthday and then begin training in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for his MMA debut in June.