Dealing with the one boxer who beat her, Claressa Shields focuses on the longer term, not the previous

THE PROMOTER, TRAINER and fighter had been in a chauffeur-driven automobile heading to a press convention in London earlier this yr, and Dmitry Salita could not assist himself. He is all the time been a giant James Brown fan, and the intense promoter with a wry humorousness discovered an opportunity to supply some levity with a message.

Salita’s fighter, Claressa Shields, was heading to the primary press occasion to publicize her battle Saturday towards Savannah Marshall (2 p.m. ET on ESPN+). The winner will turn into the undisputed middleweight champion of the world. Salita’s message in music was clear.

Hey, gotta, gotta payback! Revenge! I am mad. Received to get again!

Because the lyrics to “The Payback” blared within the backseat, Salita, Shields and coach John David Jackson began laughing. The phrases got here throughout as a reference to the one blemish on Shields’ boxing document, beginner or skilled — when Marshall beat her a decade in the past on the 2012 AIBA Girls’s World Championships.

Shields has grown a lot as a fighter since then. However a message is a message. A theme is a theme.

“You realize what, man? That is what it’s,” Salita mentioned. “So I began taking part in that music within the automobile and all people began laughing and joking round. Claressa obtained the spirit in her.”

It brings up an attention-grabbing query: How a lot is that this battle really payback for one thing that occurred 10 years in the past? Shields was a youngster again in 2012, and had not but received her two Olympic gold medals, turned professional and turn into a multi-division undisputed world champion.

Again then, Shields was nonetheless a younger girl sorting via life and never the girl she’s turn into. She’s dramatically modified who she is as a fighter, setting herself up for her many accomplishments.

Shields drives dwelling that time when she displays again on her first assembly with Marshall. Sure, she misplaced. However have a look at all she’s completed after. Not many individuals are the identical at 17 years previous and 27 years previous (her age at present).

“I am not gonna let one loss really feel prefer it’s so necessary that all the things else that I’ve completed just isn’t necessary,” Shields mentioned. “Every part that I’ve completed after that’s far more necessary than that one loss.”

Legacy issues, although. Belts matter. Carrying out historical past, which Shields has completed time after time all through her beginner {and professional} profession, has been a benchmark for nearly each battle she’s taken during the last half-decade. The Claressa Shields you see now could be totally different from the one among a decade in the past. Totally different even from the one you may need seen a yr in the past.

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FIGHT CAMPS ARE are by no means straightforward. You are getting ready to enter a hoop towards an opponent whose aim is to knock you out. So coaching is tough. Preparation is intense. Shields has been via all of this earlier than.

But on this camp she has felt extra comfortable than prior to now. Possibly it is maturity. Possibly it is confidence. Shields mentioned she wished to understand all the things. Savor it.

It is how she’s approached all the things almost about this battle.

“Whenever you rush and take into consideration what’s subsequent, it is exhausting so that you can take pleasure in it,” Shields mentioned. “I need to benefit from the camp. I need to benefit from the lead-up. I need to benefit from the battle week. I need to benefit from the determination of the battle the place I win and simply soak all of it in, as a result of when it is over, it is over, what I am saying?

“So the lead-up and all that stuff is essential and the battle is necessary and I need to bear in mind all the things. However it’s exhausting to recollect all the things if you’re going via the motions.”

Shields has been cognizant of staying on this second. She acknowledges the magnitude of what she’s doing — headlining an all-female card in London in one of many greatest fights of this yr.

She’d come near having the Marshall rematch earlier than. Each she and Salita mentioned they supplied Marshall a battle at 168 kilos earlier in Shields’ profession, however it did not come collectively. However now the fighters have a much bigger viewers. An even bigger payday.

For this camp, Jackson mentioned Shields used primarily feminine sparring companions — a departure from the previous. The camp included mutual coaching final month with Shields’ onetime opponent, WBA junior middleweight champion Hannah Rankin, who has a title protection towards Terry Harper on Sept. 24.

“The primary day of sparring, I walked over to Hannah’s coach and I mentioned, ‘Are these guys mates?'” Jackson mentioned. “As a result of they’re throwing some hellacious pictures at one another. Mates do not do this. However that was day for each of them.”

Whereas the camp was enjoyable for Shields, it was additionally one other step in her evolution as a fighter. One thing she’s been working towards for some time — a crafting of her type to make one among boxing’s most technical fighters much more harmful.

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ONE OF THE issues Shields realized over the previous few years is the folly of obsessing over perfection. Each fighter, even the best of the good, has weaknesses. As an alternative of dwelling on hers, she realized to embrace no matter she felt was weak about her skills whereas working to make the perfect of her abilities.

“Some weaknesses are good weaknesses, although,” Shields mentioned. “And other people do not wish to say that, however a few of the weaknesses that some fighters have in boxing works for his or her type. So it is like, can we repair that weak spot? Or can we depart it there?

“You do not have to repair each weak spot as a result of it might not be the perfect in your type.”

In some methods, Shields nonetheless seeks perfection, however she additionally understands fixing one factor might trigger points elsewhere. If it does not damage how she fights, it is OK for a weak spot to exist.

Shields has all the time been good at combating each inside and out of doors. She has good protection and might rapidly learn what her opponent goes to do and make herself prepared for it. It is why she’s gotten to 12-0 as a professional, combating in world title fights from the fourth battle of her profession on. However she’s additionally acknowledged the place she wants enchancment.

“To know oneself is likely one of the most troublesome issues to do and one of the maturing issues to do,” mentioned Salita, himself a former professional fighter. “So definitely, as a fighter and as an athlete, if you notice that, it is a very highly effective factor.”

Jackson has wished Shields to point out persistence, to sit down on punches extra and be extra strategic with mixtures. As an beginner, it was simply throw, throw, throw for Shields till she could not throw punches anymore. Jackson acknowledges that was a sensible beginner type, and he offers Shields’ beginner coach, Jason Crutchfield, a ton of credit score. He helped make her a champion.

Now, as a professional, there’s extra nuance. Jackson preaches rest.

“She was too desperate to attempt to knock you out,” Jackson mentioned. “And she or he wasn’t getting knockouts. … You have to sluggish your punches down and sit on them with extra weight. Your opponent goes to really feel that extra.

“Now, particularly with this battle right here, she’s understanding that.”

It took Shields time to determine issues out as a result of for thus lengthy, she was accustomed to the purpose system in amateurs. She now is aware of how totally different punch mixtures alter a battle otherwise, relying on when and the way she throws them.

She has labored on the adjustment always — in sparring, on luggage and pads, with teaching.

“Now all the things is type of beginning to come collectively,” Shields mentioned. “However it simply does not occur in a single day.”

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IF THERE’S A lesson in a decade-old loss, it was what occurred afterward for Shields. Not the 2012 and 2016 Olympic gold medals, however the extra rapid response from these round her.

Again then, Shields was a great distance from the home-owner with the brand new 2022 orange Chevy Camaro that she is now. She was balancing highschool and elite beginner boxing. That loss to Marshall? “It was a nightmare,” she mentioned.

When Shields returned after the battle to highschool, the place she was a junior, all she heard about was the loss. Not the double-digit wins she’d accrued. Nobody talked about that she’d overwhelmed three-time world champion Mary Spencer a month earlier.

Nope, it was all loss, on a regular basis. Shields mentioned that taught her how these she thought wished her to succeed might take equal enjoyment out of her one failure.

“It simply confirmed me who’s actual, who’s pretend,” Shields mentioned. “Who’s for me, who’s not. Which is one thing that all of us need in our lives. So I solely need actual, actual individuals round me. Actual assist. Actual love.

“And in the event you hate me, cool, keep over there. In case you love me, cool, keep over right here.”

Within the aftermath of the loss to Marshall, Shields picked herself up and received her first Olympic gold medal later that summer time in London. She was on her option to changing into the way forward for the game.

Now Claressa Shields is now not the way forward for girls’s boxing. She’s very a lot the current. Has been for some time. And if all goes properly for her on Saturday, she might stay on the high for a very long time to return.