Two-time Olympic gold medallist Claressa Shields will move up from middleweight to take on WBC women’s heavyweight champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse in Detroit on July 27; the American, who has been fight in MMA, is aiming to become a four-weight world champion

Claressa Shields has her sights on becoming a four-weight world champion after stepping up to challenge women’s WBC heavyweight champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse.

The 29-year-old has been competing in mixed martial arts with Professional Fighters League since August last year, winning her most recent fight in February with a split-decision verdict over Kelsey DeSantis.

READ NEXT :World champion boxer eyes MMA fight against GWOAT Claressa Shields ahead of PFL debut… ‘That’s the plan’

Shields will return to boxing on July 27 to face Lepage-Joanisse at the Litte Caesar’s Arena in Detroit, where she successfully defended her undisputed middleweight world champion status against Maricela Cornejo in June last year.

“This is a significant and unique fight where I am moving up two weight classes against a very tough champion in my quest to become world champion in my fourth weight division,” Shields said.

“I plan to do what I do best: bring that GWOAT energy and continue putting women’s boxing on the map.

“I’m excited to bring another entertaining fight to Little Caesars Arena. Last time 12,000 fans filled the arena, and this time we’re going to lift the roof off the building.”

World champion boxer Savannah Marshall has called out superstar Claressa Shields for a rematch in Mixed Martial Arts ahead of her PFL debut next month.

Whilst MMA fighters trying their hand at boxing is nothing new, it’s certainly a rarity to see not one, but two world champion boxers making the transition themselves across the cage-ring aisle.

Yet with undisputed super-middleweight boxing champion Savannah Marshall set to make her MMA debut in just a few weeks, we could be on an unlikely path to getting one of the biggest rematches in all of women’s combat sports.

Savannah Marshall wants to rematch Claressa Shields in MMA

Boxing champion Savannah Marshall is set to enter a whole new world of combat as she prepares to make her MMA debut at PFL Europe 2: 2024 Regular Season on June 8 from the Utilita Arena in Newcastle, England.

The fan-favorite fighter is 13-1 as a professional boxer, with that one singular blemish on her record thanks dealt to her by one of the GWOATs of the sport in Claressa Shields, who herself signed for the PFL back in 2020.

Speaking via TalkSport, Marshall was asked whether or not a rematch with Shields, this time in the MMA cage instead of the boxing ring, could be part of her future strategy as she looks to become a two-sport world champion.

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“Yeah, that’s the plan – everyone’s asking about me going in the league and pushing on from there, winning belts but hopefully [I’ll] fight Claressa in the cage. That’s my goal, I want that rematch.”

Given both the competitive nature of their rivalry and the desire to earn back her only ever defeat as a professional fighter, should Marshall continue to rack up wins and titles, a rematch isn’t only a possibility, it’s inevitable.

“The thing that pushed me into this PFL deal was the fact that the boxing rematch just wasn’t happening, and I was a bit devastated that it didn’t happen straight after, it never materialized and that’s just boxing politics,” Marshall revealed in a recent interview with ESPN MMA.

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“If the PFL had come to me and said, ‘Would you be interested in signing a contract and joining the league,’ I’d have said no,” said the world champion, before sharing that the key factor in her transition from boxing to MMA was indeed the idea of a rematch with ‘T-Rex’.

Claressa Shields is perhaps in the prime of her career, establishing a big enough name as a two-time Olympic gold medalist and world champion in three weight classes to headline the first boxing card in the six-year history of Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena.

The undisputed middleweight champion became the first woman to earn a seven-figure payday in her last two fights and made another $1 million on Saturday night when she beat top-ranked contender Maricela Cornejo at the home of the Detroit Red Wings and Pistons.

Shields grew up poor in Flint, Michigan, and has earned enough money to become rich at 28. Still, she laments the gender inequities in boxing.

READ MORE NEWS :Savannah Marshall signed with PFL for Claressa Shields rematch:The goal is to make a build-up

“We don’t get the equal TV time, the equal promotion, equal pay. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do with my platform and make sure that I get all of that,” Shields said earlier this week in an interview with The Associated Press.

Shields is boxing in a marquee event in part because sports-streaming service DAZN stepped up enough financially to facilitate the fight.

Women in boxing have shown they can sell out big arenas, as Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano did 13 months ago at New York’s Madison Square Garden, but they’re not compensated as well as men in the same sport.

“It’s like any other profession where the women still haven’t caught up,” said Jackie Kallen, a 77-year-old former boxing publicist and manager who was commissioner of the International Female Boxing Association. “They take a beating just like the men. They bleed just like the men, but they don’t get paid just like the men.”

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Shields is 13-0 with two knockouts. She turned pro in 2016 after becoming the first U.S. boxer of any gender to win consecutive Olympic gold medals and is averaging two fights a year.

Shields also is on a mission to be recognized as the “Greatest Woman Of All Time,” or the “GWOAT,” now and in the future.

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“People that say that women’s boxing don’t have fans, well, they’re going to be mad Saturday,” she said.

Claressa Shields knows she’ll always have detractors being in the combat sports public eye, but she’s learned the fan bases are much different between boxing and MMA.

Shields, the undisputed light middleweight boxing champion, recently improved her pro MMA record to 2-1 with a hard-fought split decision win over Kelsey DeSantis at PFL vs. Bellator in Saudi Arabia. “T-Rex” has seen how the MMA community has cast some doubt on her future in the sport, so picking up the win on a big stage was satisfying — mostly because of her doubters.

READ MORE NEWS :Savannah Marshall signed with PFL for Claressa Shields rematch: ‘The goal is to make a build-up&

“If I was just a regular old Joe and not athletic, and not really a true fighter and a true combat fighter, then MMA wouldn’t even exist for me,” Shields said on The MMA Hour. “But it’s the fact that I am just really a dog and I love fighting. I love the art of war and I’m willing to put in a hard work. That’s how I won the fight. I put in so much hard work for this girl. She’s a purple belt in jiu-jitsu.

“It’s just like, for her to be a purple belt and me be a white belt, and then she’s also more experienced in MMA, she had three fights compared to my two and I’m 1-1, but she also had Muai Thai fights and have Brazilian jiu-jitsu [matches] and I don’t have those things — so I knew that going in there with her was a risk, but we worked on my weaknesses.

“But winning in MMA, it’s fulfilling, and then it’s funny to me because I feel like in MMA, I have more doubters than I have in boxing. Nobody in boxing doubts me. It’s a couple of haters here and there, but [are] you seriously going to tell me that there’s a girl right now in boxing that can beat me? Nobody can stand on that. But when you say [there are] girls in MMA who, even on a lower level, can beat me, people get all excited, like, ‘Yeah, somebody can finally beat her.’ And then when I win, it just makes all of them mad. So it’s very satisfying to me when they’re punching the air and pulling their hair when I win, because it’s just like, yes, I worked hard, I won.

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“You doubted me, you’re mad, you suck.”

Shields was victorious in her MMA debut when she stopped Brittney Elkin via third-round TKO at PFL 4 in June 2021, before dropping a split decision to Abby Montes four months later at PFL 10.

Getting her first MMA victory was admittedly satisfying, but now that she’s been in the cage three times and has yet to get blown out, she knows there is indeed a future for her in MMA, and it could lead to some extra hardware getting wrapped around her waist down the line.

UPDATE NEWS :Claressa Shields Replies to Peter Fury’s Remarks About a Savannah Marshall Rematch

“MMA is just different, but in a weird crazy way, I actually find some kind of comfort in a whole not being the greatest thing in MMA — knowing that when I win, it’s always going to be a surprise to people,” Shields explained. “It’s always going to be something in a fight where it’s like, ‘Oh, this is MMA, this is what she’s not good at,’ and I just feel like, at first, I was doing MMA to prove to people like, ‘Hey, boxers can do MMA.’

“I wanted to win a fight, and then I won that fight by a third-round knockout with Brittney Elkin. And then I fought against Abby and I lost a split decision, but in my mind, at first, I was like, ‘If these girls got way more ground game than me, way more experience, way more just everything that I have in MMA compared to them except my boxing, why aren’t these girls submitting me? Why aren’t they knocking me out, why aren’t they choking me out?’ The answer I got was because I have potential to be an MMA champion.”

Claressa Shields has never shied away from revealing her unapologetic takes on social media. In yesterday’s case, her followers got to witness something similar! The two-division undisputed queen hopped on social media to shed light on something extremely deplorable that was captured on camera. What’s that?

Possible child abuse! The incident in question happened during Thursday’s coverage of the World Snooker Championship. While seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry was speaking in a play break, the alleged child predator was caught in the act in the background. Seeing this shameful incident unfold, Claressa Shields asked for jail time for the perpetrator.

READ MORE NEWS :Ryan Garcia’s Ugly Outburst Gets Nate Diaz and Claressa Shields’ Reaction at Devin Haney Press Conference

Taking to X, the middleweight champion reposted a clip from an individual with the social media handle ‘Paz49’. They had captioned their X post with “What the f**k did I just see?!” What did he see? The video captures an adult male positioned next to an underage boy within the crowd in the background, while the interview unfolds in the foreground.

In the clip, the unknown man whispers something in the kid’s ear before nibbling on it. After discovering the live camera, the man starts smiling at it in a bid to wave it off as a harmless joke. So, responding to the clip in question, Shields quickly wrote, “Man he need to put in jail, somebody save that kid!!”

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Yesterday, Thursday 25 April at 9.20pm, we received a call to inform us of a video circulating on social media of a man and a boy at the Crucible in Sheffield,” their statement read. They further added, “We are aware of the footage and officers will be reviewing the content.” The relationship between the man and the kid is currently unknown, but the sentiment on social media demands quick results from the authorities for the boy’s safety.

With the unsettling clip circulating on the internet, Claressa Shields has used her platform to demand justice for the young boy. However, the investigation is ongoing and only time will tell whether the accused gets arrested and jailed. What are your thoughts on the clip?

Hailed as the greatest female boxer of her generation, Claressa Shields continues to dominate the boxing world with her unparalleled prowess. The Flint, Michigan native, who holds a perfect record of 14 wins and no losses, is scheduled to speak at the upcoming Benzinga 2024 Draft Event in Detroit.

A Record-Breaking Career

Shields, who first captured public attention by securing gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, has surpassed numerous records in her illustrious career. She is notably the first male or female boxer to claim undisputed championship titles in two different weight classes during the four-belt era, a remarkable feat in the highly competitive sport of boxing.

Her recent triumph over Savannah Marshall in the U.K. marked a significant milestone. With a strategic unanimous decision victory, she avenged her only amateur loss. This match, celebrated as the most-viewed women’s professional boxing event ever, attracted over 2 million viewers.

Continued Success In Michigan

In June 2023, Shields returned to Michigan, where she defended her titles against Maricela Cornejo at the Little Caesars Arena. Despite the last-minute opponent change, Shields dominated the match, leading to a comprehensive victory. Her performance solidified her status in boxing and showcased her ability to engage and captivate the local audience.