American Females in Boxing
Like any other sport, boxing for women has a history of discrimination and injustices towards women, who, for a long time, were banned from taking part in it (Davies, 2016). In America, USA Boxing, the national governing body for Olympic-style boxing, did not lift this ban until 1993. Notably, women, however, participated in small boxing fights, which were barely recognized before the ban was lifted. Nevertheless, things have changed with the progress of time, and women can now take part in any sport they want and thrive in it. This paper will explore the life of Claressa Shields, one of America’s most successful female boxers. Do you need help with your assignment ? Contact us at eminencepapers.com.
Information about Claressa Shields’ Childhood and Early Athletic Involvement and How She Became Interested in Boxing
Claressa Shields was born in March 1995 to her parents, who lived in Flint, Michigan (Daniel, 2022). Unfortunately, when she was two years old, her father was arrested and would not be released until Claressa was nine years old. Before his arrest, her father, Bo Shields, had been a boxer but only in underground leagues. After his release, Bo would talk to Claressa about boxing and one of the boxers he talked about was Laila Ali, an undefeated boxer and the daughter of one of the greatest boxers in history, Mohammed Ali. Even though Bo talked to Claressa to share his passions with her, the topic piqued her interest, and even at her young age, she decided she wanted to be a boxer. Her father was initially reluctant to let Claressa take up boxing, but when she turned eleven, he decided to let her train.
Training for Boxing
Claressa began her training at Berston Field House, a community center in Flint that offers various services, from health services to recreational ones, including basketball and boxing. While training at Berston Field House, Claressa met Jason Crutchfield, who became her coach from a young age. Accordingly, while at the community center, Crutchfield saw Claressa fight and, at first, did not think much of an eleven-year-old’s boxing. Further, he was also reluctant to coach a female boxer, but with time, he noticed how dedicated she was and her quick progress, which was how their relationship as coach and student started. Shields’ father would be in and out of prison throughout her life, and her mother, a single mother, struggled to support her family. Coach Crutchfield would volunteer to coach Shields for free and let her sleep in his house, where he lived with his girlfriend and children. Up to the year 2012, when Shields won a gold medal in the London Olympics, coach Crutchfield did it all for free.
Claressa Shields’ Athletic Goals
In an interview in November of last year, Shields revealed that now that she has cemented her career in boxing, she wants to expand her legacy and venture more into a PFL world champion (Georgia, 2022). She wants to be a world champion in both boxing and PFL and since she has already won the boxing world championship, the PFL world championship is her next goal. PFL is basically MMA or mixed martial arts. Her second identified goal is her dream to build up her women’s only pay-per-view base to reduce the instances of sexism that women face in her industry.
Shields’ Challenges and How She Overcame Them
One societal challenge that Shields faced was the notion that boxing was a men’s sport. Even her father and coach initially hesitated and thought she would grow out of it. However, Shields has talked about how much her grandmother encouraged her not to accept the societal restrictions placed on her based on gender. Shields’s second challenge was not being able to afford the expenses of boxing training. Luckily, she had met her coach, who was kind enough to train her for free until she went pro and could pay him. A third challenge that Shields faces is being excluded from fights because of the perception that female fighters in boxing do not draw as much money as men do. This is an unfair perception because men’s boxing has a longer history than women’s boxing and, therefore, has more exposure to marketing strategies and other factors that bring in the money. Secondly, coupled with this disadvantage with prevalent sexism in the industry, women like Shields are up for numerous challenges, especially societal ones. Nevertheless, in 2020, after being cut out of fights, Shields decided to build her own all-women pay-per-view. This means she gets to decide when and who she fights instead of waiting for big network companies like ShowTime to give her coverage.
Claressa Shields’ Significant Athletic Accomplishments
Shields has gathered quite some accomplishments at the young age of 27. One is becoming the fastest boxer in the history of boxing, in both male and female categories, to win three weight classes (a three-division world champion). She won 154, 168, and 160 titles in ten fights only (Soumya, 2022). The previous record holders for this title were Kosei Tanaka and Vasiliy Lomachenko, who had won three titles in twelve fights. The second accomplishment Shields has is being a two-time Olympic gold medalist. She consecutively won these two gold medals, making her the first American to do so (Soumya, 2022). After bagging her gold medal at the London Olympics, Shields then won the World Championship gold medal at the Pan American Games. The third major accomplishment of Shields is that she is the only boxer in the history of boxing to hold all four major world titles, comprising WBO, WBA, WBC, and IBF (Daniel, 2022. She also did this simultaneously in weight classes.
Shields’ journey has been lined with one accomplishment after another, starting when she won two junior Olympic championships and the middleweight title in 2011 in her first open-division tournament, the National Police Athletic League Championships. This win qualified her for the American Olympic trials. In the same year, 2011, she boxed at the Women’s Elite Continental Championships in Ontario, where she beat a three-time defending world champion and took the win (Daniel, 2022). Since March 2021, Shields still holds the undisputed title of female light middleweight. Other titles she has held before include the unified IBF and WBC female super middleweight titles, which she held from 2017 to 2018, in addition to the undisputed female middleweight title, which she held from 2019 to 2020. Notably, in 2018, Shields was drafted into the USA Boxing Alumni Association’s Hall of Fame. Further, in the same year, the Boxing Writers Association of America awarded Shields the Female Fighter of the Year award, also known as the Christy Martin Award.
References
Daniel, Y. (2022). What is Claressa Shield’s Boxing Record? Bio, age, stats, title fights for three-division champion. The Sporting News. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sportingnews.com/us/amp/boxing/news/claressa-shields-boxing-record-bio-age-stats-title-fights/gr9uwhh8zhk7yqnn9weog9km.
Davies, R. O. (2016). Sports in American life: A history. John Wiley & Sons.
Georgia G. (2022). “PFL: Claressa Shields reveals “next goal” as she prepares for MMA return.” GIVEMESPORT. Retrieved from https://www.givemesport.com/88088577-claressa-shields-mma-pfl-return-next-goal/.
Soumya R. (2022). Claressa Shields Amateur Boxing Record: Two-Time Olympic Champion, World Champion with Just One Loss in Her Entire Career. SPORTSMANOR. Retrieved from https://www.sportsmanor.com/boxing-claressa-shields-and-her-boxing-achievements-in-the-amateur-circuit/.
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Question 
American Females in Boxing
Class, Choose a popular sport and research one of the sport’s first American female athletes. Please select an athlete that was not featured in this week’s reading or lecture and include the following:
Information about the athlete’s childhood and early athletic involvement
When and why she became interested in the sport
How she trained for the sport
Her athletic goals (if identified)
Any physical or societal challenges she faced and how she overcame them
Her significant athletic accomplishments?