Victory heralds one of the most-anticipated contests in women’s boxing, with the Marshall-Shields rivalry spanning ten years
Savannah Marshall’s ambitions to become the undisputed women’s middleweight champion in a blockbuster collision with long-time American rival Claressa Shields were made real on Saturday night when the Hartlepool boxer retained her World Boxing Organisation middleweight crown against her Belgian opponent Femke Hermans in Newcastle. Marshall brutally knocked Hermans out with a left hook in the third round to make a huge statement.
Headlining an event for the first time, Marshall moved her undefeated record on to 12-0 with her tenth knockout, laying down a marker with this stoppage, and will be favourite against Shields. The victory heralds one of the most-anticipated contests in women’s boxing, with the Marshall-Shields rivalry spanning back ten years into the amateur ranks and the Olympics. Marshall, then 20, was world amateur champion; Shields, then 17, was Olympic champion in London in 2012.
Marshall remains the only fighter to have beaten Shields in the ring, at those AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships, becoming the world No 1. But then, just a few months later, it was then teenager Shields who took the first women’s Olympic middleweight gold in London, while Marshall lost on points to Marina Volnova of Kazakhstan in her opening quarter-final bout.
Immediately after this fight, Marshall and Shields, from Michigan, went nose to nose in a now familiar war of words as one of the most anticipated bouts is set to be contracted in the coming weeks.
Security guards surrounded the two protagonists. “To be honest, I can’t remember what she was saying. She was screaming like a kid, I couldn’t understand what she was saying,” Marshall explained.
“Claressa went ten rounds with Femke. She didn’t hurt Femke so I think that just says it all really. As far as I know there’s nothing in between me and Claressa [happening] for the summer.”
The megafight in the women’s middleweight division is likely to return to Newcastle. “I want the fight in the North East no matter what,” Marshall insists. “I think she’s saying she wants it in Manchester now. I don’t know why. She’s got no connection to Manchester. I’m not fighting anywhere else. I’m going to turn into a diva and I’m not leaving the North East now.”
Both remain undefeated as professional fighters, and Hermans was outpointed over ten rounds by Shields in December
2018.
Marshall was intent on not missing that opportunity, and was at her most focused on Saturday, alternating her now familiar style of long shots with both hands, on her feet and elusive, before attacking with a heavy-handed hooks when the 6-feet tall boxer planted her feet in range, dominating switch-hitter Hermans.
Marshall, known as ‘The Silent Assassin’, wasted little time here in establishing the fight’s rhythm, against the Belgian who was a former WBO super-middleweight champion. “I wanted to make a statement but I’ll always go about it the right way,” explained Marshall, who is trained by Peter Fury, the leading trainer in his nephew Tyson Fury’s corner when he won the world heavyweight title against Wladimir Klitschko in 2015.
“I always listen to Peter, because he is my hardest critic but I am so lucky to have him in my corner. The plan is always
to break my opponents down, and if the stoppage comes, great.”
Marshall is now primed for the defining fight of her career against the two-time Olympic champion, with the grudge bout being finalised for the summer in the UK.
“It’s the first fight in women’s boxing where there’s genuine rivalry and dislike,” said promoter Ben Shalom. “I think this is going to go off the scale in terms of women’s boxing.”
Also unveiled at the Newcastle event, Lauren Price and Karriss Artingstall, winners respectively of gold and bronze boxing medals for GB at the Tokyo Summer Olympics, and also a couple, announced that they have joined the professional ranks together. Signed by promoters BOXXER for Sky Sports, they will aim for world title glory within 18 months, as women’s boxing enjoys a period of exponential growth.
BOXXER had already signed lightweight Caroline Dubois, another Olympian and the younger sister of men’s heavyweight prospect Daniel Dubois, who has progressed swiftly to 2-0 in her career.