The last -- and only -- boxer to defeat Claressa Shields was Savannah Marshall. Shields is the pound-for-pound queen in boxing and is regarded as among the handful of greatest female boxers of all-time, if not the best. Shields' nickname is The GWOAT, an acronym for the Greatest Women of All-Time.
Marshall defeated Shields in the amateurs and when they boxed at The O2 Arena in London on Oct. 15, 2022, Shields won a very close decision to claim the undisputed middleweight title. Not long after climbing out of the ring followed that disappointing defeat, Marshall was approached by James Frewin.
Frewin is a senior executive with the Professional Fighters League, a mixed martial arts promotion. He asked her if she'd ever thought of doing MMA.
Had he stopped there, Marshall likely would have said no and gone on with her day. In her next boxing match after the loss to Shields, on July 1 in Manchester, England, she defeated Franchon Crews Dezurn by majority decision to become the undisputed super middleweight champion.
It was hard, though, for her to stop thinking of what Frewin asked because he did not simply ask if she had ever considered fighting in MMA. The answer to that was a resounding no.
He asked if she'd like a shot to fight Shields in MMA in the PFL and that clearly changed her attitude.
"It was after my fight with Claressa," Shields' said of Frewin's approach. "Obviously, Claressa was already a PFL fighter. I had the big fight with Claressa at The O2 in London. The PFL approached mea and said, 'Have you ever thought about doing MMA? How would you like the opportunity to fight Claressa in the cage?' It was that little detail -- Fighting Claressa in the cage -- that got me to sign on the dotted line."
She said had Frewin not mentioned Shields, the conversation would have been brief and she'd have declined. But Shields was in the picture and her competitiveness wouldn't allow her to say no.
And so, the first step of a journey toward a third bout with Shields will begin on Saturday in Newcastle, England, when Marshall makes her MMA debut on a PFL card when she takes on Mirela Vargas.
Photo courtesy PFL
Savannah Marshall will make her MMA debut for the PFL on Friday in Newcastle, England.
A lot of boxers are MMA fans and regularly watch it, but Marshall wasn't among them before she met Frewin. She'd occasionally watch but it was hardly a passion and her opinion of MMA fighting wasn't high.
She changed her opinion, though, once she began to train using MMA techniques.
"I'm not going to lie," she said. "I totally underestimated this. I thought the transition would be a lot easier than what I've found. I've had to totally change my boxing style. I would usually lean back on my back foot. But you can't do that in [MMA] because I'll just get taken down straight away. I used to slip and slide and rely on my reactions, but I can't that do [in MMA] because I'm not only slipping punches but I'm slipping kicks as well."
Marshall admits she'll be nervous when she's making the walk on Friday even though she insists she's never nervous fighting as a boxer. If she gets past Vargas, as expected, the Shields fight will be in her future.
And while Shields remains an MMA neophyte with a 2-1 record, she has more experience in it than Marshall and Marshall understands it will be a challenge. Once she began to train, she was far more impressed by Shields' MMA work than she was previously.
"At first, when I first watched her, before I started doing a bit of [MMA] training myself, I remember thinking, 'God, she hasn't took to this,' " Marshall said. "She was really struggling, but then obviously, when I started the transition myself, I can see how hard it is so I could really appreciate [what she was doing]. I can now really appreciate how hard it is and how tough it is coming from a boxing background. Like I said, I've totally had to change my boxing stance. ... I can truly appreciate how hard this is."
Even when a joke was made that she gets to punch with four-ounce gloves instead of 10-ounces gloves, she showed respect for what MMA fighters go through.
"Yeah," she said, dryly, "but you're getting hit with those, too."
That's the challenge in switching sports at 33 years old and trying to do it at the top level. It's an incredible feat and win or lose, Marshall will fully respect her MMA peers in the future.
She doesn't know when a fight with Shields, who will be boxing for a heavyweight title in July, may happen, but the fact it's out there is keeping her motivated.
"I'm just grateful to wait and see what happens," she said.
A lot of folks are curious and waiting to see what happens, as well.