{"id":256793,"date":"2025-11-02T13:53:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T13:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/256793\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T13:53:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T13:53:19","slug":"laila-ali-shuts-down-coming-out-of-retirement-claressa-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/256793\/","title":{"rendered":"Laila Ali Shuts Down Coming Out of Retirement, Claressa S…"},"content":{"rendered":"

A potential fight between Claressa Shields<\/a> and Laila Ali<\/a> is officially off the table.<\/p>\n

After weeks of escalating back-and-forth between the two champions<\/a>, Ali has made it clear she has no interest in coming out of retirement to face the self-proclaimed \u201cGWOAT.\u201d <\/p>\n

Shields, the undisputed middleweight and heavyweight champion, has spent years calling out Ali for a generational showdown. The feud reignited earlier this year when Ali suggested she might consider fighting Shields for a payday between $15\u201320 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shields claimed she could generate the purse Ali demanded<\/a> and began publicly pressing her to agree, calling her out across interviews and social media. But despite the buzz, Ali, who retired in 2007, remained quiet until last month, when she released a YouTube video addressing Shields directly.<\/p>\n

In the clip, Ali accused Shields of having a \u201cdivisive, vindictive, and malicious nature,\u201d saying the younger champion\u2019s approach showed \u201ca lack of respect.\u201d She promised a follow-up video, and she delivered right before Halloween.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, did her plan work? Did she make me mad enough to come out of retirement after 18 years and start training again… to make her dream of fighting me come true?\u201d Ali said. \u201cAbsolutely not. [Shields] will not be rewarded with the opportunity to share the ring with me, or anything else. There\u2019s your answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shields wasted no time firing back the next morning on X, mocking Ali\u2019s refusal.<\/p>\n

“Another long ass video and still no answer to if she going to take her ass whoopin man STFU LAILA I can\u2019t take it no more,” she tweeted. “I\u2019m not making another video. It\u2019s clear you are scared, old & bitter!<\/p>\n

She continued, \u201cY\u2019all be fooled by anything \ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23 \u2018I won\u2019t reward her with a fight\u2019 how are you rewarding me by supposedly knocking me out? Being knocked out is not a reward. All that bark with no bite we all know she can\u2019t bust a grape. But you don\u2019t want to get hit by me though \ud83d\udc4a\ud83c\udffe […] lol Laila was never undisputed in no weight class the accolades don\u2019t match the mouth. And she ran fast from Ann Wolfe. The truth is getting louder and louder. 4x world champion and I\u2019m 19x world champion with LESS fights. BFFr. She\u2019s mad I called her bluff !”<\/p>\n

The exchange appears to have closed the door on what many boxing fans once considered a dream matchup, a symbolic passing of the torch between two eras of dominance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A potential fight between Claressa Shields and Laila Ali is officially off the table. After weeks of escalating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-256793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}