Claressa Shields to haters – “You doubted me, you’re mad, you suck.”
Undefeated world boxing champion Claressa Shields is now 2-1 as a professional mixed martial artist. Not many athletes have been able to do what she has done in combat sports.
The undisputed light middleweight boxing champion was recently on The MMA Hour where she discussed some of the doubt that has been cast her way during her transition from boxing to MMA and back again.
“If I was just a regular old Joe and not athletic, and not really a true fighter and a true combat fighter, then MMA wouldn’t even exist for me,” the 29-year-old fighter known as T-Rex said. “But it’s the fact that I am just really a dog and I love fighting. I love the art of war and I’m willing to put in a hard work. That’s how I won the fight. I put in so much hard work for this girl. She’s a purple belt in jiu-jitsu.
“It’s just like, for her to be a purple belt and me be a white belt, and then she’s also more experienced in MMA, she had three fights compared to my two and I’m 1-1, but she also had Muay Thai fights and have Brazilian jiu-jitsu [matches] and I don’t have those things — so I knew that going in there with her was a risk, but we worked on my weaknesses.
“But winning in MMA, it’s fulfilling, and then it’s funny to me because I feel like in MMA, I have more doubters than I have in boxing. Nobody in boxing doubts me. It’s a couple of haters here and there, but [are] you seriously going to tell me that there’s a girl right now in boxing that can beat me? Nobody can stand on that. But when you say [there are] girls in MMA who, even on a lower level, can beat me, people get all excited, like, ‘Yeah, somebody can finally beat her.’ And then when I win, it just makes all of them mad. So it’s very satisfying to me when they’re punching the air and pulling their hair when I win, because it’s just like, yes, I worked hard, I won.
“You doubted me, you’re mad, you suck.”
In her most recent MMA venture, Shields defeated Kelsey De Santis by way of a narrow-split decision at PFL vs. Bellator in Saudi Arabia. The victory came approximately two and a half years after he last attempt at a professional mixed martial arts bout. In October 2021, Shields lost a split decision to Abby Montes.
Shields then returned to boxing where she picked up three consecutive wins over top opponents in Savannah Marshall, Ema Kozin, and Maricela Cornejo.
