I know gender equity is a sensitive topic, but I feel I can safely declare the following without sparking any controversy: There’s a lot more opportunity out there if you’re an undefeated pound-for-pound-level male light heavyweight in your late 20s than if you’re an undefeated pound-for-pound-level female light heavyweight in your late 20s.
Twenty-four hours apart over the weekend, David Benavidez and Claressa Shields turned in sensational performances after stepping on their respective scales separated by three-quarters of a pound. Benavidez is 28 years old with a record of 30-0 (24 KOs) after 11 years as a pro. Shields is 29 with a record of 16-0 (3 KOs) a little over eight years into her pro career.
In theory, on paper, knowing only these numbers, you might think they’re at similar stages as boxers, with similarly bright outlooks.
But in actuality, Benavidez is a fighter possibly still approaching his prime, with a wide open and lucrative road ahead of him and several opponent options that would exceed the magnitude or challenge of anything he’s yet encountered … whereas it feels like the sport of boxing has almost nothing left to offer Shields.
Shields calls herself the “GWOAT,” the Greatest Woman (Boxer) Of All Time, and she is that, almost indisputably. Label it a low bar if you want, given that women’s boxing was an afterthought even to boxing fans until Christy Martin went mainstream in 1996, and still didn’t enter its modern era from a skill and depth perspective until the sport made its Olympics debut in 2012.
Still, with two gold medals, with titles at five different weights – every one of them unified, three of them undisputed – and without a single bout that ever went to the scorecards with the outcome in doubt, Shields is the GWOAT by some distance.
And unfortunately, she’s run out of people to prove it against.
We laud a boxer when they clean out a division. Shields has just about cleaned out half her sport.
Consider what she did Sunday night in her hometown of Flint, Michigan, and who she was left to call out afterward. Shields, whose ideal fighting weight is probably 160 pounds, fought for a second consecutive time within the 175-pound limit (I’ll spare you the headache that is debating whether that’s “light heavyweight” or “heavyweight,” which really isn’t relevant to this discussion). Standing 5-foot-8, Shields took on Danielle Perkins, who dwarfed her at a listed 6’0” and probably close to 200 pounds after rehydrating.
Seems like a tough ask, right? Well, kinda. Perkins had massive size advantages and is competent, as female boxers of a certain size go. She’s also 42 years old and had a grand total of five previous professional fights – one of them scheduled for four rounds, three of them for six, and one for eight. This was Perkins’ first scheduled 10-rounder.
Shields reminded everyone watching that size is no substitute for skill inside the boxing ring. By about 90 seconds into the opening round, “T-Rex” – not so nicknamed because of any arm-length deficiency, though it could have applied in this particular matchup – had figured out the timing to solve the reach/distance problem. Shields was getting off quick combinations without much fear of what was coming back at her. And most importantly, she appeared to have convinced Perkins of the reality that this was an unwinnable fight. That’s not a knock on Perkins. Shields is just that much better than any woman fighting above 147 pounds.
She rocked Perkins in a thrilling third round but couldn’t quite take her off her feet. With under 10 seconds left on the clock in the final round, Shields as you will ever witness, and it simultaneously almost knocked Perkins out while barely knocking her down.
The size difference told in Perkins’ ability to absorb the punch, as she seemed to lose consciousness for a fraction of a second but stayed mostly vertical, her gloves briefly resting on the canvas as she cleared the proverbial cobwebs. Had there been any time left on the clock, Shields would have ensconced Perkins in those cobwebs from head to toe, but there wasn’t time to throw another punch, and so the GWOAT prevailed by scores of 100-89, 99-90, and 97-92.
Oh, and Shields did all that while, according to her, fighting through a torn labrum in her left shoulder, which limited her ability to throw the jab and is going to require surgery.
When the fight was over, she called out three possible opponents: Hanna Gabriels, Savannah Marshall and Franchon Crews-Dezurn. What do those three women have in common? Shields has already beaten each one of them – in fights that didn’t particularly warrant rematches.
But that’s the state of play for Shields. She’s already handily defeated everyone close to her size. That’s why she’s fighting light heavyweights. It’s why she dabbled in MMA, with two bouts in 2021 and another about a year ago.
Hell, she’s already had a movie made about her life. What clearer sign could there be that her story is effectively complete?
The situation going forward for Benavidez, meanwhile, couldn’t be much more different.
On Saturday, atop a PBC pay-per-view from Las Vegas, he faced his scariest opponent to date, the talented if relatively inexperienced David Morrell, and, as Shields did, “The Mexican Monster” shined.
Technically, a couple of the scorecards were close at 115-111, and technically, Benavidez had to get off the canvas to win. But the knockdown he suffered was partially a trip, and Benavidez never appeared uncertain of winning.
It was the sort of decisive victory we’ve come to expect from the Arizonan, but it was not necessarily expected that he would produce such a win against the dangerous Morrell.
Benavidez, though, through steady investment in body shots, through aggressive and imaginative combination punching that helped him land 48% of his power punches according to CompuBox, through a perfect balance of enough defense to stay safe and enough offense to keep the crowd buzzing, made Morrell look like just another B-level light heavyweight no-hoper – even though the Cuban very much is not that.
Benavidez declared afterward, “I’ll be the face of boxing soon, taking over the sport.” And you could see where he was coming from. It wasn’t an outrageous claim. It was one of the most marketable under-30 boxers in North America understanding his position and his opportunity, having just convinced a few more skeptics that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez is ducking him, and ducking him with good reason.
Now, it should be said that Alvarez, if by chance he’s been playing the marination game and waiting for Benavidez to become a bigger star and for demand for their theoretical showdown to build, could be reading the situation just right. In the wake of Benavidez’s win over Morrell, Canelo vs. Benavidez could be inching into that 1.5 million PPV-buy territory.
But there’s no indication it’s coming, at least not next, as Alvarez is reportedly closing in on a deal to fight Terence Crawford. And that’s OK. Benavidez wants Canelo, certainly. But he doesn’t need him.
With or without Canelo, Benavidez is perfectly positioned as a mandatory challenger – both according to alphabets and to common-sense rankings – to the winner of the lineal championship rematch between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol. Unless their second fight coming up on February 22 is a Bivol win compelling enough to require a rubber match, Benavidez will have his opportunity to, as he said, take over the sport – or at least the light heavyweight division.
Turki Alalshikh, who plucks boxing’s loudest purse strings, intends to match the Beterbiev-Bivol II winner against Benavidez.
And if Benavidez proceeds to capture the 175-pound championship from one of those men, Alvarez may even see the reward as worth the risk at that point.
It’s good to be David Benavidez right now. There’s no more thrilling point, in any endeavor, than when you’re just approaching the mountaintop, not yet having experienced the highest of all highs, not yet even thinking about the descent.
It’s good to be Claressa Shields too, I’m sure. But she’s on top, and she’s been there a while now. And for this mountain-GWOAT, the top is an awfully lonely place to be.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of and the author of 2014’s . He can be reached on , , or , or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.