FLINT, Mich. – Claressa Shields wanted to make history Friday night on several levels. The first part she managed before reaching the ring, heading a pay-per-view card exclusively for women.
The second part took care of her 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-belt era (since 2004), male or female, to be the undisputed champion in two divisions. Shields retained his WBC and WBO junior middleweight titles while claiming Dicaire’s IBF crown and the vacant WBA world title.
“I did,” Shields said in the ring after the fight, which meant for the first time in 20 years that a women’s boxing match was the main pay-per-view event.
The three judges marked the fight between 100 and 90, a sweep for the wrestler who claims to be the best of all time. Shields landed 116 of 409 punches and Dicaire landed 31 of 263. Shields landed double-digit hits in seven of the 10 rounds.
After the fight, Shields (11-0, 2 KOs) was asked if he would drop to 147 pounds to fight Katie Taylor. Shields laughed and congratulated Taylor as a fighter.
“They have to pay me a lot of money to lose my ass to go down to 147,” Shields said, adding that he would do it for a million dollars. Shields then called Savannah Marshall, the only fighter who beat her as an amateur, and said Marshall “is afraid of me.”
Fighting in his hometown, Shields, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was dominant throughout the match against Dicaire (17-1). When he entered the ring, most of the more than 300 fans at the Dort Financial Center Arena were left with their camera phones to record the event.
They were for most of the fight, rising in the sixth and seventh rounds when Shields began to land more power shots. One of the punches shook Dicaire in the early sixth, cheering him on. After the fight, Shields said she was elbow and nodded several times.
Once the fight was over, Shields had all the belts on his arms and waist. She thanked the people of Flint and said that when she was little, “never in a million years” did she think she would fight a payment card in her hometown.
Shields said it will take a week to celebrate his birthday and then he will start training in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for his MMA debut in June.