Claressa Shields is pound for pound the best women’s fighter in the world, and equally the best trash talker outside of it.
Shields (10-0, 2 KOs), the three-division champion and two-time US gold medalist, is trying to convince former female boxing queen Laila Ali (24-0, 21 KOs) to come out of retirement for one last hoorah.
In doing so, she’s trying to play some mind games, much like Ali’s legendary father Muhammad Ali once did in his heyday.
“You can tell when a person doesn’t love boxing. She can get on camera and say, ‘boxing is her first love’ all she wants to. It’s a myth. If boxing was her first, she would attend other boxing matches. [Ali] would be looking at other fighters. [She] wouldn’t be retiring at the age of 29 and saying ‘there weren’t any women for her to fight,’” Shields told BoxingScene.com in an interview.
“There are women who say they’ve called Laila Ali out for a fight and she didn’t answer. It’s more than ducking Anne Wolfe. It’s Latisha Robinson, and a lot of girls. Nobody ever questioned her legacy and if she fought everybody. To me, that’s insane. Boxing is not her first love. Cooking is. That’s what she does, that’s what she likes to do, and that’s what she should stick to doing.”
The 25-year-old Shields, who hails from Flint, Michigan, wants to roast Ali in the ring with a highlight-worthy knockout and create her own iconic moment.
“I dream to get a knockout [of Ali] like Ann Wolfe did to Vonda Ward in 2004,” said Shields. “It’s the biggest knockout in women’s boxing. I’m going to train my ass off to knockout Laila Lai like Wolfe to Ward.”
The last time Ali was in the ring was 2007, when Shields was a 12-year-old upstart and years away from achieving her Olympic dreams.
“All of my fights have been one-sided beatings, no matter who the opponent is. I fight everybody. I am a great fighter. I am the best women’s fighter, ever. The GWOAT. [Ali] is going to come in there and stand her ground, and she’s going to show that she’s an Ali. I’m going to whoop her ass — every round,” said Shields.
“I just say what’s on my mind. It’s not that I’m even trying to get to my opponent. I do like to try and read them and get a reaction out of them. That’s just how you play mind games. I learned that from the great Muhammad Ali.”
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist and member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011. He has written for the likes of the LA Times, Guardian, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Men’s Health and NFL.com. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com.