Claressa Shields made a powerful return to middleweight on Sunday, stopping Kaye Scott in the sixth round to reclaim the WBA and WBC titles in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
Fighting at middleweight for the first time since 2023, the five-division world champion dropped three classes to face 42-year-old Scott of Australia.<\/p>\n
Dominant from the start, Shields shifted through the gears to seal a fourth career stoppage win and take her professional record to 19-0 – with Wales’ Lauren Price in her sights.<\/p>\n
“It was a hard camp,” said Shields, an Olympic champion in 2012 and 2016. “I always tell myself that everything is easy work, but it was a really hard camp. <\/p>\n
“I cut 38 pounds. I started 14 weeks ago at 198 and then I got down to 160. <\/p>\n
“It was the most disciplined I’ve been since the Olympics.”<\/p>\n
In just her eighth professional bout, Scott was outclassed by the challenger’s hand speed and accuracy before being weakened by a flurry of body shots in the fifth. <\/p>\n
In the following round, Shields put Scott on the ropes with a vicious left hook and, sensing opportunity, the American threw a barrage of shots as the fight resumed. <\/p>\n
As a dazed Scott failed to defend herself, her corner threw towels into the ring to end the bout.<\/p>\n
“I was actually just trying to figure [Scott] out,” said Shields, who holds all four heavyweight titles. “She was stronger than I thought. <\/p>\n
“She was very strong, and I knew that with me cutting the weight that I cut, that I didn’t want to exert too much early.”<\/p>\n
Following her statement win, Shields suggested welterweight champion Lauren Price should be her next opponent in December or January. <\/p>\n
Failing this, the 31-year-old hopes for a meeting with compatriot Mikaela Mayer, or Canada’s Tamm Thiebault, who holds the IBF, WBO and Ring middleweight belts. <\/p>\n
“She’s only had five fights as a professional, but she’s got belts,” Shields said of Thiebault.<\/p>\n
“It’s not my fault these girls don’t have the experience that I have. She’s got a belt that I know belongs to me \u2013 and that’s the Ring belt.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Claressa Shields made a powerful return to middleweight on Sunday, stopping Kaye Scott in the sixth round to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-739819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}