Claressa Shields makes history, undercard lingers
In a clash of female middleweight world champions, Claressa Shields (9-0, 2 KOs), unified the all four of the widely recognized world titles by beating Christina Hammer (24-1, 11 KOs) on Saturday night at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.
The bout was viewed as a pick’em, and a close match, but was anything, but once the action started. Shields was too active of a puncher, and Hammer had no answer for Shields when she was on inside in which Hammer looked a bit shellshocked.
Shields cruised to a dominate one-sided victory to claim the WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF women’s middleweight world titles via the scores 98-92 on all three judges scorecards.
After the bout, Shields stated she wants to face Cecilia Braekhus, the unified welterweight women’s champion as well as continuing to state she is the greatest woman [boxer] of all-time.
The undercard saw some upsets as Brenda Carabajal defeated Elena Gradinar via a ten-round decision, picking up the interim IBF women’s world title in the process. Gradinar was previously unbeaten.
Heavyweight Jermaine Franklin stayed unbeaten as he dominated Rydell Booker over ten-rounds, heavyweights Otto Wallin and Nick Kisner saw their bout end with a head clash in the very first round making their bout a no-contest, super bantamweight Marcus Bates got a third-round technical knockout over Jesus Hernandez, heavyweight Mario Heredia got off the canvas to win a split decision over Samuel Peter in an eight-round bout and middleweight Isiah Seldon got a six-round decision over Bryan Goldsby.