Claressa Shields couldn’t have completed greater than she has.
Two Olympic gold medals. World titles in two divisions. A 13-0 skilled report, 10-0 in championship fights. One of many two or three faces of girls’s boxing. She is already top-of-the-line to ever do it.
Just one factor is lacking: knockouts. Solely two of her victories have come by stoppage, the latter of which got here in her fourth combat, in 2017.
That continues to trouble Shields as she prepares to face Hanna Gabriels in a rematch on June 3 at Little Ceasars Enviornment in Detroit.
And it serves as motivation. Boxing Junkie requested her whether or not it’s troublesome to rise up for her fights given her dominance over everybody she has confronted as knowledgeable.
“No, it’s not,” she mentioned. “If I had been knocking these women out within the first or second spherical, it will be onerous to rise up. I went 10 rounds and dominate and in my thoughts … why can’t I knock her out? So for me that’s what will get me up.”
The query is: What is going to get her knockouts?
The 2-minute rounds in girls’s boxing don’t assist. Ladies don’t have as a lot time to put on down their opponents. And, clearly, some fighters merely have extra pop of their punches than others.
Shields figures that the KOs will come if she does the best issues.
“We gotta determine the best way to knock these women out,” she mentioned. “I already dominate them. So the subsequent degree is to KO them. I really feel like all these males get knockouts [against inferior opposition] early of their careers.
“I’ve had solely powerful challenges, women with extra expertise, women who’re stronger than me. … I’ve lastly caught as much as them in expertise. I’m extra snug sitting down on my punches.
“We wish high quality over amount, digging the physique shot, the nice head motion, countering, explosiveness. Now we’re entering into that. I had been successful with pure expertise.”
She has a bit of further motivation towards Gabriels (21-2-1, 12 KOs).
The Costa Rican is the one opponent to have ever put Shields on the canvas, turning the trick within the first spherical of their 2018 combat. Shields ended up successful a large resolution, proving that she was the superior fighter despite the early mishap.
Nonetheless, Gabriels, now 40, evidently believes she has the facility to show the tables within the rematch. For her half, Shields put the knockdown behind her years in the past.
“It made me upset that evening that it occurred,” he mentioned. “That was it. I’m not enthusiastic about a knockdown 5 years later like she is. What else did you do? You misplaced. That’s what all people else has accomplished contained in the ring with me, lose.”
Certainly, if stopping fights early has been an issue for Shields, successful actually hasn’t. She hasn’t misplaced a combat since Savannah Marshall outpointed her when she was a 17-year-old novice in 2012.
And successful supersedes every part else. It could simply be good to have an early end now and again.
“Truthfully, I simply ‘wish to’ maintain successful, maintain getting higher, knock these women out, maintain getting quicker and stronger, and simply proceed having an incredible profession,” Shields mentioned. “There’s at all times someone who’s up and coming, who needs a shot at world titles.
“I simply wish to keep prepared for them and simply combat the most effective. That’s all I can do proper now.”
