Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall first met in Qinhuangdao, China in 2012.
Marshall beat the 17-year-old Shields on points en route to winning gold at the AIBA Women's Boxing World Championships.
Ten years later they were rivals again, with nearly 20,000 fans gathering at London's O2 Arena to watch Shields exact his revenge with a spectacular display of boxing and grappling that saw him dominate Marshall and become the undisputed middleweight champion of the world.
The long-standing rivalry between the two takes an unexpected turn this weekend.
On Saturday night, Shields, an undefeated three-division world champion and professional mixed martial artist, will be in Newcastle, England, to watch Marshall make her mixed martial arts debut against Mirella Vargas.
Shields is currently training for a July 27 bout with WBC heavyweight champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanis and is always looking for new challenges. She knows she has nothing to gain if Marshall's decision to follow her into the Professional Fighters League falls through.
“Honestly, I want to see her go out there and do a great job,” Shields told Boxing Scene. “We both represent women's boxing, so if she goes out there and loses, especially if she loses in a spectacular way, it reflects badly on everyone in women's boxing because she's honestly one of our top fighters. She's our knockout artist.”
“She has one loss, but to me, she competes in MMA and people expect her to win by knockout, even though it's a completely different sport.”
The 29-year-old Shields knows all too well how different the two sports are: He hadn't come close to losing a boxing match since his amateur loss to Marshall, but he lost his second MMA fight inside the cage.
Marshall, the undisputed super middleweight champion, will be fighting under very different rules and in a foreign environment on Saturday night, but Shields, who is now 2-1 inside the cage, thinks what will surprise Marshall most is how much of an MMA fight is fought inside his head.
Both Shields and Marshall have been boxing for so long that they will have to fight against instincts and muscle memory at times, but Shields says Marshall will have to think every second through in his MMA debut.
“It's a mental game,” Shields said. “When she walks into the cage and hears that click and she's locked in the cage, it freaks her out.”
“I think she's surprised that her opponents don't respect her punches. They never do. Their strategy is to land 20 shots for one takedown and then spend the rest of the round on the ground.”
“You have to switch between a lot of matches and understand what type of match you're in. You can't try to box on the ground when your opponent is doing jiu-jitsu. You have to change with your opponent and compete at every level.”
A few weeks ago, Marshall told BoxingScene that he has fallen in love with the grappling part of his training and plans to continue chasing belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after he retires from boxing.
While grappling is an essential part of any MMA fighter's arsenal, Shields believes Marshall should do his best to treat it as a hobby, using it only when absolutely necessary.
The fact that both of Vargas' losses came by submission suggests Marshall should spend more time on the stand than on the ground this weekend, but as Shields learned in his only loss, grappling doesn't just take place on the mat.
Her opponent, Abigail Montez, used her wrestling and clinch techniques to keep Shields against the cage and in constant danger of being taken to the ground, so GWOAT spent more time worrying about overhooks, underhooks and keeping her hips heavy than she did about jabs, right hands and left hooks.
Shields learned that for a boxer, being able to land hard punches quickly is crucial to staying at a safe distance and ultimately making his opponent lose confidence.
“Savannah is a hard puncher,” Shields said. “I was taught from a young age that when you're fighting someone really good on the ground, the more you throw, the lower your belt rankings will go.”
“Black belt. Two hits and you're a brown belt. One more hit and you're a purple belt. Blue belt. If you keep hitting them, they're in survival mode and forget all about their moves. So I go out in the first round and let my hands go, so the girls know, 'I'm going to hit you in the face.'”
“To do that you need confidence and not be worried about getting taken down, because where we are in boxing, it makes us more susceptible to being taken down.”
“I know she says in interviews that she loves grappling and stuff like that, but you have to actually see her in the cage and find out what she loves. You'll know if you love grappling when you're taken down and on your back while your opponent is trying to choke you for a submission. Then you'll know if you love grappling.”
Marshall said the possibility of a rematch with Shields was a big factor in him signing with PFL, but while Shields will be watching this weekend's fight with interest, he's not necessarily using the trip as a scouting mission.
It would be a shame if the only arena in which two of the biggest stars in women's boxing could resolve their differences was inside an MMA cage, but for Shields, at least, that's not an issue. For the time being, at least, it looks like a third bout between the two, if it happens, will take place in a boxing ring.
“We were going to have a boxing rematch in America,” Shields said, “and I went to her hometown and fought there, and I think Savannah was scared to come to my hometown.”
“As far as the PFL goes, Savannah is not the PFL World Champion so I'm not even considering her. That's my overall goal.”
“I think thinking, 'I want to fight Savannah and win' is too small a goal. I'm going for bigger goals – $1 million and the belt. To be able to say I'm boxing world champion and PFL world champion at the same time. That's my dream, and I see it as akin to winning the Olympics again.”
