The Claressa Shields Experience
By Eddie Sanchez
In one week, the weigh-in for the undisputed Women’s Light Middleweight championship of the world will take place. Three-weight World Champion Claressa Shields will take on Marie-Eve Dicaire for all the marbles the following night.
These two women are largely recognized as the top two in the world P4P. Shields is even considered one of the best of all time. Yet, despite their individual accomplishments and upcoming clash, the narrative surrounding their bout is largely underwhelming.
To no fault of their own, their All-Women lead PPV event is falling victim to gender bias and passive-misogyny.
This is not meant to single out Mike Coppinger specifically, but it’s alarming when one of the most prominent members of combat sports media is negatively highlighting a PPV event that is historic in build.
The narrative surrounding this bout is also the perfect representation between the differences MMA brands like the UFC promotes their female stars, versus how Boxing has handled this endeavor. Women such as Amanda Nunes and Ronda Rousey built household names for themselves through the UFC’s promotion and became some of the UFC’s most popular draws, regardless of gender.
The Shields-Dicaire PPV will be the first PPV headlined by a women’s bout since Laili Ali took on Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, Joe Frazier’s daughter. This historic bout between two legacies generated a reported 100,000 buys in 2001.
Having 20 years pass between these two bouts is a terrible look for the sport. There are so many talented women in the boxing industry begging for their promoters to take notice and promote them in good faith, but the proof is in the pudding that this has not been the case.
These Superwomen, Claressa Shields and Marie-Eve Dicaire, are bucking the trends within boxing and attempting to build a precedent similar to how prominent MMA brands have marketed their stars.
Coincidentally, the following night, Amanda Nunes will attempt to defend her Featherweight title against Megan Anderson as the co-main for UFC 259. Having these two bouts on back-to-back nights creates the perfect opportunity to have a difficult conversation regarding why Boxing has been unable to replicate what the UFC offers to the women in their organization.
Claressa Shields has done her part to start the conversation. “Listen, women have to stop depending on men to give us shots at everything,” Shields told ESPN. “Women’s boxing is a hot commodity. Don’t let no other network tell you that it’s not. Women’s boxing is in, just like women’s MMA. All we need to do is have our own platform and show them that we have fans and that we can sell pay-per-view buys.”
“So I’m super excited to be having my first pay-per-view card and I’m hoping that everybody who has been waiting on me to fight, everybody that supports me, that they all get behind me and get behind the women athlete movement and just join us because not only are we yelling equal pay, equal opportunity, equal TV time, we’re also working just as hard. We’re equally working.”
This is a powerful message that she echoed, and on March 5th, I am hoping the industry does it’s part to properly support her movement.
The health of Boxing depends on women like Claressa Shields finding monetary success. If all of the most well known women in combat sports fight under different platforms like Bellator and the UFC, it will become extremely difficult to recover from the self-imposed hole they have found themselves in.
As fans we should do our part to support fights such as these, where the top two contenders are fighting each other on an affordable PPV card. There are no promotional hurdles, this fight is not happening years down the line. These women have handled business in negotiations, and on March 5th, they will handle business in the ring. The best woman alive will be left standing. This is an event you can not afford to miss!
