Claressa Shields wasn’t going to let anything stop her from achieving more glory.
Not even a fractured finger.
Shields says she suffered the injury in sparring, just two weeks before she stopped Kaye Scott in the sixth round to win the WBA and WBC middleweight titles at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
“I was in the gym working on delivering my body shots but I fell and when I tried to catch myself, I hit my finger,” Shields told FightHype. “Then my finger fractured. It happened two weeks ago. I couldn’t believe it.”
Shields, who is also the undisputed heavyweight champion, has never been known for her knockout power but she’s looking to change that. Her last stoppage win came in 2024 against Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse. Prior to that, she went six years without scoring a KO victory. However, she was dominant against Scott, whose corner threw in the towel 1:38 into the sixth.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist is now in her second reign as a middleweight champion. She grabbed undisputed glory at 160 pounds in 2019. Overall, Shields has three undisputed reigns under her belt, and she's a five-division champion. From her point of view, that sort of dominance makes it practically impossible for any woman to beat her, even if she isn’t 100 percent.
“I don’t care if I don’t have any arms,” Shields added. “They still can’t beat me.”
