Claressa Shields rolls her eyes as she examines Savannah Marshall’s file.
The three-division champion can’t understand why Marshall is considered a knockout artist, when Shields is clear Marshall has feasted on smaller, inferior opponents. Shields, who will meet Marshall in a middleweight title unification fight on September 10 at London’s O2 Arena, discussed Marshall’s unblemished record (12-0, 10 KOs) during an interview with BoxingScene.com.
“It’s a good matchup,” Shields said. “That’s it. He’s been given a bunch of tomato cans. And, I mean, I’m not wrong. If I’m going to [boxrec.com] and she reads her opponents’ records to you, you’ll see that, ‘Okay, she knocked this girl out three days early, but look at her record. He fought her a week in advance. Look who she knocked out, you know, look at this girl’s record, 4-25. She and April Hunter have similar opponents. How, when April Hunter weighs 140 pounds? Or is she 135? How come a 168-pounder and a 175-pounder have a similar opponent with a 140-pounder? She is knocking out smaller girls with losing records.”
Marshall has knocked out 83 percent of his professional opponents, while Shields (12-0, 2 KOs) is only 17 percent in knockout rates.
They have three common opponents: Femke Hermans (13-4, 5 KOs), Sydney LeBlanc (4-5-1, 0 KOs) and Hannah Rankin (12-5, 3 KOs). Marshall (four rounds) and Shields (eight rounds) went all the way with LeBlanc, but Marshall defeated Hermans and Rankin by knockout and TKO, respectively, while Shields defeated Hermans and Rankin by unanimous decision in a pair of 10 rounds. .
Shields, however, has defeated a far more formidable group of opponents, including eventual undisputed super middleweight champion Franchon Crews (8-1, 2 KOs) in Shields’ pro debut nearly six years ago. The 12 fighters Marshall has defeated entered the ring with a combined record of 97-116-13 before facing her.
“I mean, there’s somebody on his record who’s 11-67, 4-25,” Shields said. “Those aren’t opponents that you knock out and say, ‘Oh, that was a tough fight. It was a tough knockout. It’s like, ‘No, her best knockout was against Hannah Rankin.’ And Hannah Rankin, she was a lot that went into that fight and I’ll keep that because when I saw the movie, it all made sense. So, we’ll just have to wait until the fight gets a little closer until we really talk about it.”
Shields, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who has only lost to Marshall as an amateur or professional, and Marshall will headline a Sky Sports broadcast in the UK and Ireland. ESPN+ will broadcast his 10-round 160-pound championship match in the United States.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
