Mary Spencer: “I want to fight Claressa Shields.”
Mary Spencer is a former Olympian and a three-time world amateur champion. Fighting, in some way, shape, or form, has been a constant for the Canadian. But her manner hides it well. Thoughtful and precise with her words. A calming demeanour that hides plenty.
“I always like fighting,” Spencer told me over Zoom. “It’s nothing new to me.”
Spencer wanted to fight from an incredibly early age. However, she was made to wait a little before the itch was finally scratched. “Boxing entered my life when I was sixteen. But I was fighting long before that. When I was about ten years old, I asked my dad to take me to the boxing club. But he said no, it isn’t for girls. Girls don’t box. I waited a few years, and when I was sixteen, I made my way to the boxing gym. I knew my dad was wrong when he said it because I fought boys all the time. After school, I fought a boy all the time, and I beat his ass. But I couldn’t tell my dad. I went on and did some other sports, but I came back to boxing and found my way to a gym. I was able to turn that love for boxing into something positive, and I needed it at the time. My coach forced me to train hard when I got kicked out of school for fighting.
“Thinking back to how this kind of happened. He didn’t even ask me if I wanted to train. I just showed up at the gym, and he told me he would pick me up the next day. It was great, and it was perfect.”
Spencer paused somewhat when I asked her what the attraction of her sport was. “I just think it is something that is in my veins for wanting to fight,” was her measured reply. “It’s just part of who I am. I am not an aggressive person. I’m not like that. Maybe I would be if I weren’t boxing. It’s something that makes me feel alive.”
The amateur career was beyond successful. Three world titles and a gold medal at the 2011 Pan American Games highlight her quality. But when she was viewed as a dead cert for a medal at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, Spencer went out at the quarter-final stage. “Everyone wants to succeed on the biggest stage, and that is obviously the Olympics, and I wanted that success there,” a reflective Spencer told me. “For a long time, I was hard on myself. I took it really harshly. But my weight category didn’t go to the Olympics. I was a 141lb Canadian champion when we went to the Olympics. I was told I could either fight at 132, which wasn’t possible, or fight at 165. I am pretty sure I was the only fighter at those Olympics who made that jump. While I didn’t have the success at the Olympics, I can still look at it as something to be proud of. The timing wasn’t there for my weight category. I did what I could.”
Mary Spencer turned professional in 2021, and the 40-year-old quickly built up a reputation for her fights ending inside the distance. But after winning her first seven fights, Spencer lost two straight fights to Femke Hermans. But the Canadian recovered her career with three wins on the bounce, including getting her hands on the WBA super-welterweight title. But rather surprisingly, she views having that title a little differently than what many might suspect.
“It wasn’t that important if I am being completely honest,” Spencer says. “I turned pro to have some fun, exciting fights with the girls I knew from the amateurs. All of my fights so far have been stepping stones. I had fun because I liked fighting. But the motivation for preparing those fights isn’t the same as it will be for my next fight. At times, it was a struggle, but I think the best of me is yet to be seen. You don’t go from fighting in the Olympics and winning three world championships, thinking it’s cool to fight the girls I have fought in my last twelve fights. Even when the belts were on the line, it’s hard for me to look at that as a big deal. I’m only really interested in the fun, exciting fights.”
Mary Spencer will have some fight news dropping within the next week or so, but despite the challenge that awaits her in just a few short months, Spencer has eyes on rekindling an old amateur rivalry.
“I want to fight Claressa Shields. That’s what I want. I want to fight her because this girl came up at a point in my career when I was the world champion at 165, but she never got to see me at my best. People don’t know this, but my lifelong amateur coach was Charlie Stewart; he took me from my very first fight to the Olympic Games. At the end of 2011, he had an accident, and he was in the hospital with a brain injury. My training took a serious toll because of that, and when I fought Claressa, I didn’t have my coach there. Everything fell apart because we were a tight-knit team. I had a hard time finding myself after losing him. I recently went back to Kara Ro, who was Charlie’s assistant. Kara coached me for my last fight, and she will be coaching me for the rest of my career. I really struggled to find myself as a fighter since I lost my coach, so my two experiences with Claressa Shields were ones where she didn’t get the best of me. We also sparred a lot of rounds together, and she knows it would be a good fight. I would love to have that fight, I don’t even care about the money or the prestige. I just want to give my best in a training camp and prepare properly and then fight her with my best foot forward.”
Published by FightPost: MMA & Boxing News
Published
22nd Aug 2025