Even with a brand new opponent and brief advertising runway, Shields’s promoter, Dmitriy Salita, views Detroit as one motive this combat might draw followers. Placing Shields, who grew up in Flint, Mich., atop a card on the new enviornment in Detroit additionally locations her squarely inside the metropolis’s boxing custom, he mentioned.
“This isn’t a metropolis the place there isn’t a boxing historical past. This is among the richest boxing histories on the planet,” Salita mentioned. “The stress that she’s beneath and the doorways that she’s opening, each combat is an excellent combat for her.”
Sugar Ray Robinson spent his childhood in Detroit, and Joe Louis made town his residence base. In March 1980, three months after Joe Louis Enviornment opened, Hilmer Kenty, the primary world champion from the famed Kronk Gymnasium in Detroit, defended his light-weight title there. Kronk’s most well-known product, Thomas Hearns, who was nicknamed the Hitman, fought within the cofeature on the identical card.
Shields, 28, enters Saturday as certainly one of boxing’s most dominant opponents of any gender. She not often loses rounds, and has solely misplaced two official fights in her life. As a 17-year-old beginner she dropped a disputed determination to Marshall within the lead-up to the 2012 Olympics, and in October 2021 she misplaced a blended martial arts bout to Abigail Montes within the Skilled Fighters League.
However as an expert boxer, Shields has received world titles in three weight lessons, and has been the undisputed champion at 154 and 160 kilos. She has defeated so many champions that she has begun in search of rematches with boxers she has outclassed.
Her 2018 bout towards Gabriels resulted in a lopsided determination win. Salita mentioned that if Shields wins on Saturday she may face the winner of an upcoming bout between Marshall and Franchón Crews-Dezurn, each of whom Shields has already vanquished.
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