Claressa Shields seemed into her telephone’s digicam lens to make eye contact, then held up an index finger.
Because the undisputed ladies’s middleweight champion, she had simply been requested in an interview over video convention how lengthy it might take for her to achieve pay parity with equally credentialed male boxers.
“In a single yr,” she stated.
Reaching that milestone would require defeating Ema Kozin, an undefeated challenger from Slovenia, within the cofeature of a pay-per-view card in Cardiff, Wales, on Saturday evening. Shields’s bout is the primary in a two-fight cope with the British broadcaster Sky Sports activities that features simply over $1 million in assured pay and may culminate in a showdown with Savannah Marshall, the English boxer who was the one individual to have crushed Shields as an newbie.
“I’ll be making what these guys make,” stated Shields, a 26-year-old from Flint, Mich. “It’s going to come back very, very quickly. Faster than we expect. It’s nice timing.”
To be clear, “these guys,” doesn’t discuss with Saúl Álvarez, the tremendous middleweight champion nicknamed Canelo who’s broadly thought-about to be the highest male boxer on the earth. He’s undoubtedly the best-paid boxer on the planet, incomes a reported $40 million assure for a win in November over Caleb Plant.
However for Shields’s crew, approaching or matching the paydays of male fighters who’re completed however not essentially well-known to mainstream sports activities followers is a practical purpose. Final yr, Jermell Charlo, the boys’s tremendous welterweight champion, earned a reported $3 million for his title protection in opposition to Brian Castaño, with $1 million of that cash assured. Wins over Kozin, 23, and Marshall, 30, might probably vault Shields into that pay bracket.
“Claressa’s the proper athlete on the proper time to progress ladies’s boxing to the following stage,” stated Dmitriy Salita, Shields’s promoter. “Claressa’s going to get rewarded proportionately to the success of her occasions.”
For Shields and her administration crew, that timing refers to her progress from {the teenager} who received gold on the 2012 Olympics, to a champion who received once more on the 2016 Video games, to an undefeated skilled with world titles in two weight lessons.
Seen by way of the prism of wins, losses and championships, Shields’s profession has been marked by the regular, linear progress that, Salita stated, ought to carry a fighter larger paydays, no matter gender.
However Shields, who’s 11-0 with two knockouts as an expert, has not had the uninterrupted broadcast partnerships that usually construct standout boxers into stars. Most of Shields’s bouts have appeared on Showtime — she turned professional on the community in November 2016, and two of her three most up-to-date bouts have additionally been broadcast there. However she has additionally competed on HBO and the sports activities streaming service DAZN.
Shields’s most up-to-date bout, a unanimous-decision win over Marie-Eve Dicaire of Canada in March 2021, headlined an unbiased pay-per-view card staged by Salita’s promotional firm.
Since then, Shields has competed in blended martial arts, going 1-1 in two fights with the Skilled Fighters League, and helped with the manufacturing of a function movie about her life. Shields stated the detour into M.M.A. improved her boxing by boosting her total energy, and that her facet tasks will develop her profile.
“All of that’s bringing followers again to my boxing,” she stated.
Shields’s two-fight cope with Sky Sports activities is unfolding as feminine boxers earn an rising share of the game’s consideration and cash.
Final week, Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor introduced they might meet on April 30 in the principle occasion at Madison Sq. Backyard, marking the primary time two ladies will headline a struggle card on the Backyard’s major area. The occasion’s promoter, Matchroom Boxing chairman Eddie Hearn, stated every fighter is assured at the very least $1 million — and he has a easy rationalization for the shift within the pay scale for elite feminine boxers.
“It’s demand,” Hearn stated. “That’s the one motive elevated cash comes right into a struggle or a sport. Sponsors need to be concerned in ladies’s sport. They need to be concerned in occasions which are going to draw numerous eyeballs.”
Hearn stated the Serrano and Taylor struggle would be the largest ladies’s boxing match in historical past; Salita stated the honour will belong to Shields and Marshall, each time they meet. In 2012, Marshall and Shields fought as amateurs, with Marshall profitable 14-8 below the computerized scoring system newbie bouts used. Shields has not misplaced a boxing match since.
Public demand for a rematch relies upon partly on Marshall profitable her subsequent struggle, which is scheduled for March 12 in opposition to Femke Hermans of Belgium.
“Claressa is in my sights. It’s in touching distance,” Marshall informed reporters earlier this week.
The bout hinges on Shields dispatching Kozin, who has recorded 11 knockouts in 21 skilled wins. Like Marshall, Kozin is a southpaw who’s satisfied she will dethrone Shields.
“I don’t really feel any strain due to who she is,” Kozin informed reporters in January. “I see it as an enormous alternative, and never some form of burden.”
Shields, for her half, stated the prospect of a high-profile, big-money showdown with Marshall won’t distract her from the Kozin struggle.
“I’m specializing in who’s in entrance of me,” Shields stated. “Marshall and her crew are specializing in me.”
Supply: NY Times
