WATCH: Claressa Shields’ Olympic Boxing Debut at London 2012

Claressa Shields is one of the most decorated and one of the greatest female American boxers. With two gold medals to her name in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics and an undefeated professional boxing career as a three-division World Champion. In her Olympic debut in 2012, she fought another great in Anna Laurell for a fight for the ages.

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Anna Laurell is One of the most decorated amateur boxers of all time. The swede participated in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London after receiving a wildcard from the Swedish Olympic Committee.

She is a two-time World Champion, three-time European Champion, and seven-time Swedish National Champion at 75kg in the middleweight division.

Claressa Shields vs Anna Laurell- An epic fight that went the distance

Claressa was a young phenom from Flint, Michigan, that went into the World Championships unbeaten but lost in the second preliminary round. She had nothing to lose as she fought one of the more experienced and well-established names in the sport. 

Claressa looked for a knockout in the second round as she upped the tempo. She finally stunned the swede in the 4th round leading to a standing eight count.

After the fourth round, it went to the judge’s scorecard and Shields won the bout 18-14 to advance to the semifinals of the Olympics. She eventually went on to win gold.

Claressa Shields’ professional career thus far 

Claressa fields’ professional record is 10-0 with 2 KOs, in just ten fights the Michigan native has managed to secure super-welterweight, middleweight, and super-middleweight titles.

She is the only boxer in history to hold all four major world titles in boxing(WBA, WBC, IBF, and IBO) at the same time. After dominating the boxing world, Shields looked to dominate the world of MMA.

In November 2020 she signed a three-year deal with the PFL as she started training alongside former UFC Champion Holly Holm at JacksonWink MMA.

Shields started off her MMA career strong with a win over Brittney Elkin via technical knockout in round three. Her next bout is scheduled to take place in August 2021 against an opponent who is yet to be named. 

The entire boxing and MMA world will have their eyes on Claressa as she tries to replicate her boxing success in MMA and prove to people that she is one of the greatest combat athletes of all time.