FLINT, Mich. – Claressa Shields unanimously outpointed Danielle Perkins on Sunday evening within the first undisputed heavyweight bout in girls’s boxing to stay undefeated.
Shields, a two-time Olympic gold medalist with titles in 5 divisions, was answerable for the battle from the beginning. She knocked down Perkins, touchdown a proper hand on her chin with 15 seconds left within the tenth and closing spherical.
The 29-year-old Shields improved to 16-0 with three knockouts.
“I need a rematch with Hanna Gabriels,” she stated.
The 42-year-old Perkins, who led St. John’s basketball workforce in blocked photographs twenty years in the past, received her first 5 fights earlier than dropping to Shields.
Perkins, weighing 177-plus kilos and standing at 6 foot, was a number of inches taller and some inches heavier than Shields.
She took a few of Shields’ finest photographs early within the bout, hitting the canvas solely when the referee pushed her when separating the fighters within the third spherical. After each boxers pale within the center rounds, Shields closed the seventh with a flurry of punches.
Shields received gold medals at 165 kilos on the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, making her the first boxer from the USA to win consecutive Olympic medals.
The highly effective puncher appears at house within the 200-pound division, although additionally did at 175, 168, 160 and 154 kilos.
Shields knocked out WBC heavyweight champion Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse final summer season in entrance of about 12,000 individuals at Little Caesars Area in Detroit, the place the Crimson Wings play.
Shields took newest subsequent battle to the house of the Ontario Hockey League’s Flint Firebirds in an enviornment with about 6,000 seats and a flooring crammed with followers in folding chairs.
She stated the bout might have been been New York, including there was nearly a take care of Barclays Middle, Las Vegas within the Motor Metropolis.
It was vital to Shields, although, to convey the primary undisputed heavyweight bout in girls’s boxing historical past to her resilient hometown that was featured within the film ” The Fireplace Inside,” primarily based on her life.
Within the co-main occasion, Brandon Moore (17-1) received the vacant USBA heavyweight title after Skylar Lacy (8-1) was disqualified within the eighth spherical for unsportsmanlike conduct. Lacy used his left shoulder to drive Moore again and out of the ring and onto a desk commentators have been utilizing for streaming service DAZN.
Shields, an advocate for girls in boxing, was proud to push for females to be featured in 4 of the ten fights in Flint.
Ashleyann Lozada Motta, who turned the first Olympic girls’s boxer from Puerto Rico on the 2024 Paris Video games, made his skilled debut and received a unanimous choice in a feisty, four-round battle towards Denise Moran (3-1).
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Observe Larry Lage at https://apnews.com/creator/larry-lage
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AP Boxing: https://apnews.com/hub/boxing
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