The two-time Olympic gold medalist and undisputed boxing champion will compete in MMA against an opponent TBD.
Undisputed women’s middleweight and junior middleweight boxing champion Claressa Shields’ highly anticipated MMA debut now has a date.
Professional Fighters League announced that Shields (11-0, 2 KOs) will compete on June 10th in a non-tournament bout at the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City. No opponent has been announced and neither has the weight class, although considering she’s never fought below 154 lbs in boxing it’s logical to assume she’d be at 155 in MMA.
Shields is just 26 years old and in the prime of her career, having just recently beaten Marie-Eve Dicaire in March to possess all four major world titles at junior middleweight. She became undisputed middleweight champion in 2019 when she unified title by defeating Christina Hammer in what was the first ever women’s fight to headline a Showtime Championship Boxing card.
Despite her success in boxing dating back to her two Olympic gold medals, she has been vocal about sexism in boxing, as well as pay inequality. She signed with PFL late last year and has been training at JacksonWink MMA, and recently she showed some footage of her working on her ground game with 2019 freestyle wrestling world champion Tamyra Mensah-Stock.
Shields will continue her boxing career in addition to competing in MMA, but fans will undoubtedly be intrigued to see how she fares in a new sport in the prime of her career.