Written by Terrell Groggins Photography credit Terrell Groggins
Shields' domination continued Friday night retaining her middleweight world titles. The 22-year-old two-time Olympian from Flint, Michigan decided to turn pro in hopes of being the greatest woman of all time.
Tori Nelson, of Ashburn, Virginia, had a gameplan of fighting Shields along the ropes, but the young Olympian from Flint proved to be the more skilled athletic boxer. Shields defended herself well avoiding Tori's hooks by keeping her distance using her jab.
From my Perspective
Being ringside documenting the bout behind the camera, I thought Claressa threw every punch with power and accuracy. This was my first time watching Tori Nelson in person and she was a tough, skilled fighter. I know I'm not supposed to talk about age with women (forgive me grandma), but she held her own.
“I’m not happy because I didn’t win, but other than that I thought I executed pretty well,” said the 41-year-old Nelson. “I gave her a better fight than she was expecting.
“No disrespect to Claressa, she doesn’t have great power. She has great speed and she overwhelms you with a lot of punches. My movement threw her off like I knew it would but knowing she was the champion, I needed to just push a little bit more.”
The 2x Olympic Gold Medalist outboxed Nelson 225-81 with her total punches, 186-70 in powers punches, and connected at a 44 percent accuracy with her power shots compared to 20 percent for Nelson, according to CompuBox. Shields landed crisp sharp punches throughout the fight and moved great around the ring, but Nelson took everything.
Claressa Speaks "I landed every shot that I thought possible to land, she was tough, she wasn't a pushover. She put on a good fight."
What's next for Claressa Shields you ask? She's going to continue to dominate woman's boxing. She has goals of dropping down in weight to fight the other skilled woman boxers like Christina Hammer the undefeated Unified Women’s Middleweight World Champion.
Hammer was in attendance last Friday and she was interviewed by SHOWTIME analyst Steve Farhood.
Christina** Speaks** “It’s a great combination me and her on the same card,” Christina Hammer said. “I can’t wait to show the fans who Christina Hammer is. That will be the best fight ever. It will be the game-changer for female boxing. It’s our time to shine."
It's definitely womens time to shine in boxing.
Crisp Counter punch lands flush for Shields
Nelson working her game plan.
Shields fighting off the aggressive Nelson
“Behind the scenes-Claressa Shields training for her first World Title Defense”
