Claressa Shields difficult Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse for heavyweight title
The GWOAT is lastly again.
This time, Claressa Shields returns to the ring as a heavyweight.
Shields, dubbed the “Best Girl Of All Time,” will problem Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse for her WBC ladies’s heavyweight world title, The Submit has discovered, on July 27 at Little Caesars Area in Detroit because the headliner on DAZN’s “Massive Time Boxing USA.”
Shields (14-0), who’s presently the undisputed middleweight champion, hails from Flint, Mich., so might be combating close to her hometown.
She is promoted by Dmitriy Salita, a former fighter-turned-promoter who grew up in Brooklyn.
Shileds beforehand turned the undisputed mild middleweight champion in 2021, and is the one ladies’s boxer to carry undisputed titles in two weight courses.
Earlier than that, Shields received the unified WBC and IBF tremendous middleweight title in 2017.
Now, Shields, who received gold medals at middleweight and the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, is shifting all the best way as much as heavyweight to vie for a world title in a fourth division.
She hasn’t fought in boxing since she defended her undisputed middleweight title towards Marciela Cornejo on June 3, 2023, additionally at Little Caesars Area, although she beat Kelsey DeSantis in February in an MMA match.
Shields, 29, fights below MMA promotion PFL and owns a 2-1 document, taking over the brand new sport in 2021.
However she returns to the place she is greatest – the boxing ring.
“The Queen of Boxing is again! I’m so excited to return to the ring, particularly after my MMA victory in February,” Shields mentioned. “I’m excited to convey one other entertaining struggle to Little Caesars Area. Final time 12,000 followers crammed the world, and this time we’re going to carry the roof off the constructing!
“This can be a vital and distinctive struggle the place I’m shifting up two weight courses towards a really robust champion in my quest to grow to be world champion in my fourth weight division. It’s an thrilling time for girls’s sports activities, and I thank DAZN for offering a worldwide platform for girls’s boxing. I plan to do what I do greatest: convey that GWOAT vitality and proceed placing ladies’s boxing on the map.”
The 28-year-old Lepage-Joanisse (7-1) received the WBC heavyweight title in March when she beat Abril Argentina Vidal.
“From the start of her profession, Claressa has been on a quest to make her story part of historical past,” Salita mentioned. “This struggle is certainly one of Claressa’s hardest challenges.”
