Malissa Smith Q&A: Claressa Shields is a class act in what she does

Malissa Smith, a historian specializing in women’s boxing and an author of two books on the subject – including her recent release “The Promise of Women’s Boxing” – provided insight into the latest achievements of Claressa Shields. In Smith’s most recent book, the foreword was penned by Shields, who is the self-appointed – but also widely regarded – greatest woman of all time (GWOAT) in boxing.

Shields (15-0, 3 KOs) stopped Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse (7-2, 2 KOs) in Detroit last Saturday, making her a titleholder in both the heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions simultaneously. Smith spoke to BoxingScene to provide context on what the milestone means for Shields and her future prospects.

BoxingScene: You know Claressa Shields well. What is the significance of what she accomplished Saturday?

Smith: Well, I think there’s a few places to go with it. First of all, she has cleaned up all the divisions that she has ever fought in, which is 154 to 168, and there’s really no competition, per se. A lot of the middleweight and super middleweight divisions have kind of collapsed a little. There’s really not much going on in those divisions.

Shay [Shadasia] Green, who fought Franchon Crews-Dezurn at 168, looked like she might be a contender for Shields, lost that fight, and she fought again on the Amanda Serrano card a week or so ago. I love Shay, but that fight, even though she won, she should have won with a lot bigger statement than she did, and I don’t really think she’s competitive at all with Claressa. There was talk of maybe fighting Natasha Jonas at 154, but that never really materialized, and jumping down to welter at 147 is just a big threat for someone like Claressa, and there’s really no fighter that had made that compelling enough for her.

BS: So where else is there to go?

Smith: She’s got no competition where she is. So why not go up? There has been some movement in the heavyweight division for women. So, I think it was an opportunity for her to try to see if maybe she can make something happen. Maybe there are enough women in that division, or who can fight at 175, to make it an interesting opportunity in terms of where women's boxing goes, because most of the action is in the lower weights. So, by taking on that opportunity to challenge herself, and from the standpoint of this is her walking-around weight – she walks around in the 180s – so for her to drop down to 175 meant that she could do it in a very natural way. She didn’t have to go on a ridiculous diet, and [she could] just basically come back into the gym, don’t eat dessert, and she’s at her fight weight. So that gave her a lot of opportunity. It also gave her an opportunity to think about how she could really start to assert power in the ring, which, as you know, is something that people often held against her – which is, she doesn’t have a lot of knockouts. Well, she worked on that. She worked on that in camp, and in terms of changing her game somewhat, leveraging the weight of fighting to be able to find a way to torque her body and sit down on her punches enough to be able to assert power. She was able to show that very strongly.

BS: Was Lepage-Joanisse really a competitor for her?

Smith: Not necessarily. She held the WBC belt at 175, but was she in the same league as a fighter? No. But there are very few women who are right now, and in terms of her to keep anything going in boxing, Shields is throwing things up on the board to see what works.

So in that sense, I think that’s an important thing to understand about what Claressa is trying to do, trying to carve a path for women at all weights and, at the same time, find a place where she can still be competitive – or try to attract and be a market mover and make 175 attractive to those that are out there that can fight at that weight. Listen, when Martha Salazar fought at heavyweight, she showed there were really good opportunities that women can have if they fight well at light heavyweight and heavyweight, so we’ll see where it goes.

BS: In other sports, figures like Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods and even Pete Sampras drew attention from their dominance over a sport. In boxing, it seems fans want close fights and not a fighter showcasing that they are vastly better than other world-class fighters. Do you have thoughts on that?

Smith: It may be the case. Look, when Shields came into the sport and immediately cleared out all of the best women in the sport at those weights, and Christina Hammer had the belt for I-don't-know-how-many years at middleweight, she walked through her same thing with Nicki Adler. So, these are women who are essentially European fighters who fought long and hard at those weights, with a real fan base, coming into it with a real pedigree and experience, and she walked right through them. So, I think there is the issue of who her competitors can be.

One thing she might look to do is fight Franchon Crews-Dezun again. It would certainly be nice for Franchon to get a decent payday out of the deal. They started their careers together in the pros, and Claressa often said that she was the hardest hitter she ever faced. Is that going to be a competitive fight? Maybe. But do people really respect Franchon as a fighter? That's another whole question.

If you look, historically, it would be like there was Ann Wolfe and there was Layla Ali at the upper weights in middleweight, super middle, light heavyweight. Where does she stand in that pantheon of great fighters? She would probably defeat those fighters as well, but that would be considered potentially more competitive, because they're known as strong fighters of this weight. I think you're correct and that the momentum now is in the smaller weights, so you have a fighter like Katie Taylor who has more opportunities for highly competitive fights because of just the weight class she’s in and the fact that there are more women competing there. Whether this new crop of women coming out of the Olympics in 2020 and 2024 will provide opportunity is another question. But by the time they get into the pros and then have enough of the pedigrees, enough fights under them to become competitive for someone like Claressa, it becomes really problematic. Too many years pass. Claressa, now, is 27 and she could fight for another 10 years if she chooses, too.

BS: Will Shields be more interesting to fans as she ages and wins fights in different ways over the next decade?

Smith: I think that's a very good point, but her skill set is so brilliant, and her ability, her ring IQ, is so brilliant. It'll be interesting to see exactly how she manages the inevitable slowdown of the physical body. Listen, she’s been boxing since she was 11 years old. She had 78 fights just in the amateurs alone. That’s a lot of ring time. But … as a figure, she’s not only elevating the sport, she’s also really throwing out a gauntlet in terms of just accepting women as they are and for who they are. I think that probably will be part and parcel of what her legacy will truly look like. That she made a life at all is what is extraordinary, and then to not only make that life but to have had such a brilliant career of it is also something that I think over time will become more and more appreciated and understood.

Lucas Ketelle is a proud member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and author of “Inside The Ropes of Boxing” (available on Amazon). Contact him on X @LukieBoxing.