Deontay Wilder and Claressa Shields pick up big wins over the weekend
Saturday night was a big night in the world of boxing, as on October 15, 2022, a pair of multi-time world champions and Olympic medalists in Deontay Wilder and Claressa Shields picked up important wins.
Wilder fought 31-3 Robert Helenius at the Barclays Center in New York City, while Shields fought fellow 12-0 Savannah Marshall at the o2 Arena in London, England.
Deontay Wilder was perhaps the most-feared man in boxing for years and years, up until his second and third fights with Tyson Fury. He went 30-5 as an amateur, he’s a Golden Gloves champion, a US national champion, and he won a bronze medal in the Olympic Games prior to turning professional.
Wilder’s first fight with Fury resulted in a draw, a fight he went into with a record of 40-0. He went into their rematch with a record of 42-0-1 (41 knockouts) but would suffer back-to-back knockout defeats in their rematch and trilogy bouts in rounds 7 and 11 respectively.
Wilder was the WBC heavyweight champion at this time, and he had ten defenses to his resume going into their second affair.
Wilder had taken some time off in between the second and third meetings with Fury, nearly two years in fact. And, he did look much better in the trilogy, nearly knocking Fury out, like he almost did the first time, but it wasn’t enough, and he’d eventually get stopped.
But exactly one year and one week later, Wilder returned to the ring and violently KO’d Helenius at 2:57 of round one. This improved his record to 43-2-1; all three blemishes come to Tyson Fury, as mentioned above, 42 of those wins come via knockout, as mentioned above, and the only man he couldn’t finish, he KO’d in round one of the rematch.
Then we have Claressa Shields, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and a two-time World Champion that made it to 77-1 as an amateur before turning professional. That one defeat came to Savannah Marshall, the woman she just defeated via unanimous decision last night.
Shields defended her WBA, WBC, IBF, WBF, and Ring Magazine titles, and claimed the WBO middleweight championship in the process. This marks the third division Shields has become undisputed champion in (light-middleweight, middleweight, super-middleweight), and it improved her record to 13-0 as a professional.
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