Claressa Shields may be a Michigan native who lives in Atlanta, but she still seems right at home in Brooklyn.
It only seems natural that “The GWOAT” would fit right in at Gleason’s Gym, which 42 years earlier was the first gym in New York City to open its doors to women, and has produced numerous female champions. Shields, the women’s undisputed heavyweight champion, is beginning her training camp there, and she has plenty of familiar faces surrounding her.
There is Heather Hardy, the former WBO featherweight champion who trains clients at the iconic gym underneath the Manhattan Bridge. Shields, an Olympic gold medalist at the 2012 and 2016 Games, describes Hardy as “one of my idols”, saying she first had hope that she could make a living as a professional when she saw Hardy fighting on television. There’s Ronica Jeffrey, the former title challenger who last fought in 2019, and who shared a friendly conversation with Shields as the two shadowboxed together during Tuesday’s media workout.
There’s also Don Saxby, her new assistant trainer, whom she first became acquainted with after being introduced through one of Saxby’s other clients – and also her boyfriend – the rapper Papoose. Saxby will be working alongside Shields’ long-time trainer John David Jackson for the second straight fight.
“Who don’t love Gleason’s?” said Shields, 16-0 (3 KOs). “It’s a gym that got great energy and great people. Every world champion has been inside of here. I’m talking about Zab Judah; Floyd [Mayweather]; Muhammad Ali; Heather Hardy.”
Shields’ next assignment will bring her back to the midwest, when she faces New Zealand’s Lani Daniels, 11-2-2 (1 KO), on July 26 at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. The 36-year-old Daniels, who is in her second reign as IBF light-heavyweight champion, was not Shields’ first choice for an opponent. She says Hannah Gabriels, the only woman to knock her down in a fight, turned her down when offered a rematch. “We shot high and then went to second best,” said Shields. Still, she understands the danger of her opponent.
“I think anybody that has self-belief is very powerful,” said Shields of Daniels, who is fighting outside of New Zealand for the first time. “She believes in herself. She hasn’t lost in two years; she lost early in her career and now she’s been undefeated. When you get into your undefeated era, you’re really hard to beat. I think I’m gonna have to dig a little deeper to break her mentally and then break her down physically.”
Saxby feels that Shields can score her second stoppage in three fights at heavyweight, especially if she targets the midsection.
“We’re going for the KO. Me and head coach John David Jackson will definitely have a game plan in place to ensure that. Me personally, I want to see her stop Daniels to the body. Shields is aggressive enough to launch that kind of attack,” said Saxby, whose previous fighters include Joan Guzman and Kurt Scoby.
Her promoter Dmitriy Salita, who has guided Shields since her second professional fight in 2017, says Daniels had reached out to them in the past to try and make the fight, but that it hadn’t happened before due to logistical reasons. He believes that Daniels, who is little-known outside of Oceania, will enter the fight with almost no pressure on her to perform, and that Shields has the pressure of trying to entertain her hometown fans.
“Every time you have a fighter that’s willing, that’s spirited, that’s bold and that comes forward and wants to win, that’s always a test,” said Salita, who himself trained at Gleason’s Gym early in his career under the late Hector Roca. “And that’s always a risk.
“Lani Daniels has nothing to lose and everything to gain coming to the champ’s hometown of Detroit and fighting the ‘GWOAT’.”
Salita regardless recognizes it’s a challenge to continue to find new tests for Shields, who has been undisputed champion at 154lbs, 160lbs and heavyweight, while also winning titles at super middleweight and light heavyweight. He feels there will still be challenges to emerge, particularly coming out of the amateur system.
“The higher you go up in weight class, the more challenging it is,” the promoter said. “The fact that women’s amateur boxing has been around for some time now – there’s new contenders; there’s new champions – but there’s always a challenge to make the fights interesting and to make the fights engaging. You always want to build a rivalry and build a risk factor on the other side so the fans can tune in.”
Some of the top potential rivals for Shields include Shadasia Green – the WBO super-middleweight champion from New Jersey who is promoted by the rising women’s boxing powerhouse Most Valuable Promotions – as well as Cris Cyborg, the unbeaten former mixed-martial-artist-turned-boxing-prospect who has been goading Shields on social media.
Shields rejects the idea that there is no competition remaining for her.
“I don’t know about there’s no competition for me in boxing because all these girls can get whooped,” she said.
What challenges and goals remain for a woman who has opened so many doors in the sport? To open even more, she says.
“I don’t think that there’s a number I can put a cap on how many world titles I want,” said Shields. “I’ve got 17 world titles right now but if I can retire with 35 that would be good for me. I want to make the records be unbeatable.
“I already made over $1million; now I want to make $3, $5, $10, $15, $20 million for a fight. That’s really one of my biggest goals – to continue building my brand and having that Serena [Williams] effect like she had all over the world but with boxing.”
