At the Masonic Temple in Detroit Michigan, Claressa Shields scored her 6th professional victory with a unanimous decision over Hanna Gabriels via scorecards of 99-92, 98-91, and 97-92.
The bout was broadcast live on Showtime, in a special edition of ShoBox: The New Generation. With the victory Shields won the vacant World Boxing Association (WBA) World Female Middleweight Championship, while simultaneously holding the WBA World Female Super Middleweight Championship.
The fight itself was a very good one, with both women coming out very aggressive in the first round. The audience got a stunner when Shields went down for the first time in her career from a right uppercut and left hook combination landed by Gabriels in the very first round. She rose and made it through the round but it was one of those moments that nobody was expecting.
n the second round, Shields was still coming forward but eating punches from Gabriels in order to land her own. Early in the fight it looked like Gabriels was the harder puncher, with Shields trying to be the ring general. The women were really moving their hands, throwing lots of punches, and as we saw in the second round Shields was really pressing forward and putting her punches together more.
Gabriels was doing a good job of countering, but it was Shields that kept the work rate up as Gabriels seemed to be going down a little bit round to round. Shields had her best round of the fight in the fifth round as Gabriels was breathing very heavily from the mouth and had poor body language that you usually do not want to see from a fighter in the ring.
Gabriels showed that she is a very experienced champion, however, as she hit a second wind and started pressing forward in the second half of the fight. She had some good moments but also was walking into shots at times as Shields has very fast hands.
In the championship rounds both women were completely exhausted from the fast pace they set at the beginning of the fight and grueling fight they had made it but it was Shields that was still throwing the little bit cleaner and straight shots as Gabriels looked very tired and a bit sloppy, although she was still trying her best.
It was a great fight to the finish, with both women ending the fight still swinging away. It will definitely make the list for one of the most exciting female fights of the year as it came through with what it promised as an exciting, and historical matchup.
