Boxing
Claressa Shields quickest three-division world champion in boxing history after dominating Ivana Habazin
Claressa Shields hit her ring walk Friday night while donning a crown and dancing to Beyonce's "Run the World (Girls)."
The self-proclaimed GWOAT (Greatest Woman of All Time) then furthered her case that she runs women's boxing by securing her latest piece of boxing history — or herstory, as she calls it. Shields earned a lopsided unanimous decision (99-89, 100-90, 100-89) over Ivana Habazin to win the vacant WBC and WBO junior middleweight titles at the Ocean Resort Casino in Atlantic City, N.J.
Shields (10-0, two KOs) is the quickest boxer ever — man or woman — to be crowned a three-division world champion. It took Vasiliy Lomachenko 11 fights to accomplish the feat.
"I did it in 10 fights and now I'm No. 1," Shields told Jim Gray during her postfight interview on Showtime.
She did it in style, too. After asserting her jab during the first couple of rounds, Shields started to attack the body during the third frame and was overwhelming Habazin in the fourth.
Shields told Gray that she could hear retired boxing legend Andre Ward urge her to work the body some more during the sixth, and she took heed by pounding away at the Croatian fighter with a barrage of blows until Habazin crumbled to the mat in pain. That marked Shields' first career knockdown.
As a sign of desperation, the severely outmatched Habazin tried to smother Shields during the 10th and final round, but the Flint, Mich., native powered her way out of the close quarters and punished her opponent some more en route to adding to her boxing legacy.
"I am the greatest woman of all time because she couldn't do nothing with me," the 24-year-old Shields said. "Zero."
The one-sided fight ended the boxers' feud, which included Habazin's 68-year-old trainer, James Ali Bashir, being attacked and hospitalized with head and facial injuries last October, when Shields and Habazin were originally slated to fight. Shields’ brother, Artis Mack, was charged with assault in connection with the altercation.
When asked what she'd like to do next, Shields simply responded that she'd like to become a better fighter.
She added: "I would love to share a card with Deontay Wilder, Errol Spence."
Shields also admitted that she was looking forward to facing Alicia Napoleon-Espinosa, who was upset on the undercard by Elin Cederroos, but now she welcomes the opportunity to face Cederroos, the new unified super middleweight champ.
Jaron Ennis destroys Bakhtiyar Eyubov in fourth-round TKO; welterweights
The welterweight division has a problem, and his name is Jaron Ennis.
The 22-year-old Philadelphia fighter dropped his opponent with a right hook-straight left combination to the forehead while counterpunching with his back against the ropes. Seconds later, he unleashed a flurry that made Eyubov taste the canvas again. That electrifying output came in just the first round.
Eyubov showed a titanium chin by absorbing power shots, and he even landed some punches of his own over the next couple of rounds, although any thoughts of him digging back into the fight were long gone.
Ennis (25-0, 23 KOs) was relentless in the fourth round. He doled out enough unanswered punishment for the commissioner to order the referee to stop the bout because of the accumulation of punches.
Elin Cederroos edges Alicia Napoleon-Espinosa in WBA/IBF women’s super middleweight unification bout
Cederroos landed a short left hook that staggered Napoleon-Espinosa and sent her bouncing off the ropes. The second-round knockdown — the first time Napoleon-Espinosa had tasted canvas — proved to be the difference as Cederroos won the give-and-take battle by a close unanimous decision (95-94 on all three scorecards).
