A pair of world championship grudge matches will move forward with a rescheduled date.
The women’s card previously scheduled for September 10 at The O2 in London will now take place at the same venue on October 15, BOXXER formally announced on Tuesday. Headlining the show, reigning three-division WBA/WBC/IBF middleweight champion Claressa Shields and WBO champion Savannah Marshall collide for the undisputed middleweight crown. The co-main event pits Mikaela Mayer and Alycia Baumgardner in a delicious showdown for the lineal/WBC/IBF/WBO/IBO junior lightweight championship.
The September 10 card as a whole was postponed due to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. The entire card has been moved to the new date and will be broadcast live on Sky Sports in the UK and on ESPN+ in the US.
The event will see 2016 U.S. Olympic teammates Mayer and Shields share the stage for the first time as professionals. The old friends and current undefeated champions were the only two women from the 2016 team to travel to Rio, where Shields captured her second consecutive gold medal.
Mayer stayed in the amateur ranks for another year before signing with Top Rank upon turning pro in 2017. Since then, he has emerged as a pound-for-pound-level talent, winning the WBO title in a masterclass of ten rounds against undefeated champion Ewa Brodnicka. in October 2020. Two fights later, Mayer outpointed Maiva Hamadouche in their epic IBF/WBO unification fight last November in Las Vegas, which was hailed by BoxingScene.com as the 2021 women’s fight of the year.
In her most recent start, Mayer threw a ten-round virtual shutout of former featherweight champion Jennifer Han on April 9 in Costa Mesa, California. The fight marked her first headlining in her childhood state, having grown up in Los Angeles before moving and eventually settling in Colorado Springs.
Each of Mayer’s last two fights came a week before Baumgardner entered the ring, their aligned schedules making it that much easier to get on with their mouthwatering fight.
In a strange way, the fight almost represents a home game for Baumgardner (12-1, 7KOs), who will now fight in the UK for the third time in a row. The explosive boxer-puncher from the Detroit metropolitan area crashed the title picture with a sensational fourth-round knockout of undefeated WBC/IBO champion Terri Harper on November 13 in Sheffield, England. The feat was recognized by BoxingScene.com as the 2021 Women’s Knockout of the Year.
Baumgardner followed up with a ten-round shutout of former featherweight champion Edith Soledad Matthysse on April 16 in Manchester, England.
There was a brief period where Baumgardner came close to meeting WBA champion Hyun Mi Choi as both champions are promoted by Matchroom Boxing. The theory at the time was to stage that fight first “and then Mayer for all the marbles,” as Matchroom Sport president Eddie Hearn previously told BoxingScene.com.
Those plans took a drastic turn when Mayer and Baumgardner were able to turn their fierce rivalry into one of the most anticipated fights of the year. Terms were reached in May, and it was simply announced that the event would take place in September on an ESPN platform. Las Vegas was the only US city targeted, although there was always a strong possibility that the fight would land in London as part of Top Rank’s ongoing working relationship with Ben Shalom’s UK promotion company BOXXER.
The tremendous grudge match gives a tremendous boost to a show that has already been capped off by the highly anticipated showdown between Shields (12-0, 2KOs) of Flint, Michigan and Hartlepool, Marshall of England (12-0, 10KOs).
Shields has won championships at 168, 160 and 154 pounds, in that order, and undisputed championship status at middleweight and junior middleweight. The move to 154 came at the cost of Shields letting go of his WBO middleweight title, which was claimed by Marshall in a seventh-round knockout of Hannah Rankin in October 2020.
Marshall has scored eight consecutive knockouts, including a three-round blitz over Femke Hermans on April 2 in Newcastle, England. The 31-year-old Briton is the only fighter to beat Shields as a professional or amateur, doing so more than ten years ago during the Round of 32 at the 2012 World Amateur Championships. Marshall won the tournament outright, earning himself a place in the 2012 Great Britain Olympic boxing team that competed in London.
By Boxxer, aAll tickets purchased for the original September date remain valid for the new date of October 15 and ticket holders do not need to take any action or obtain new tickets to attend the event. The last remaining tickets, priced at just £25, are available to buy now via boxxer.com.
The card includes a trio of Britain’s 2020 Olympians who competed in Tokyo last summer: gold medalist Lauren Price, bronze medalist Karriss Artingstall and Caroline Dubois. Also on the show, Houston’s Ginny Fuchs, a 2020 U.S. Olympian, teams up with Ella Mayer’s best friend for the second time in as many fights since she turned pro earlier this year.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
