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Thread: Boxing vs. MMA

  1. #166
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    competing at that level of competition he better have something besides just stand up if he wants to step into the cage. this is probably just a stunt like tony pulled, to get a pay check or try and get recognition. I remember reading that he (tony) provoked dana white over and over trying to get the fight and finally white was like ok you wanna fight sure i'll give you a fighter, then gave him couture (one of the prominent ground guys in UFC.) white knew what couture would do to him.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i had an old taichi lady talk smack behind my back. i mean comon man, come on. if it was 200 years ago,, mebbe i wouldve smacked her and took all her monehs.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i am manly and strong. do not insult me cracker.

  2. #167
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    Tyson Fury is a great name for a boxing champ.
    I would love to see this fight. In fact I would love to see any pro boxer with no experience outside of boxing step into the cage. We all know what would happen most of the time. They would have a punchers chance, of course, but would usually end up on their back. And of course after the loss we would hear all about how the guy who won is a wimp because he wouldn't stand and trade bluh bluh bluh. It's sort of like a guy who can't dribble but has a killer free throw saying he could take any basketball player in a real game. The truth of the matter is that boxing is only one element in MMA. That isn't to say that boxers can't be great in MMA, it's just that they would have to do some rounding out if they wanted to last.

  3. #168
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    RIP Tommy Morrison

    This seemed as good a place as any to post this.

    Tommy Morrison Dead: Former WBO Heavyweight Champion, 'Rocky V' Star Dies At 44
    By DAVE SKRETTA 09/02/13 03:27 PM ET EDT AP


    -- Tommy Morrison's career reached its pinnacle on a hot June night in Las Vegas, when he stepped into the ring and beat George Foreman to become heavyweight champion.

    It reached its nadir when he tested positive for HIV three years later.

    The last 20 years of the brash boxer's life would be defined by extensive legal troubles, erratic behavior and mounting health problems. Morrison would later claim that he never tested positive for the virus that causes AIDs, even as he was hospitalized during the last days of his life.

    Morrison died Sunday night at a Nebraska hospital. He was 44.

    His longtime promoter and close friend, Tony Holden, confirmed that "the Duke" had died, but his family would not disclose the cause of death. Morrison and his wife, Trisha, continued to deny that the former champion ever had HIV during the final years of his life.

    "Tommy's a very stubborn person and he views things the way he wants to view things. That's his right and privilege," Holden said. "All through his career, him and I would come not to physical blows but disagreements on certain things. We always ended up friends. That was Tommy.

    "That's the way Tommy took off after he was told he was HIV-positive," Holden added. "When he first was told, I was taking him to seek treatment and to different doctors around the country. And then he started research on the Internet and started saying it was a conspiracy. He went in that direction and never looked back."

    The controversy, along with Morrison's rapid decline, overshadowed a stellar career.

    Morrison was a prodigious puncher whose bid to fight in the 1988 Seoul Olympics ended at the hands of Ray Mercer, who later dealt him his first professional loss. Along the way, Morrison became such a recognizable face that he was cast in "Rocky V" alongside Sylvester Stallone.

    Morrison won his first 28 professional fights, beating faded champions such as Pinklon Thomas along the way. He hit it big at the Thomas & Mack Center in the summer of 1993 – a unanimous decision over Foreman, then in the midst of his comeback – to claim a vacant world title.

    As with so many things in Morrison's life, the good was quickly followed by the bad.

    Morrison was in line for a high-profile bout with Lennox Lewis when he was upset by unheralded fighter Michael Bentt in Tulsa, Okla., not far from where Morrison was raised. He was knocked down three times and the fight was called before the first round ended.

    The loss meant a potential $7.5 million payday for a title unification fight simply vanished.

    "I zigged when I should have zagged," Morrison said afterward. "It's one of those situations you have to live with and learn from it. I'll be back."

    Morrison indeed came back, but he was never the same feared fighter. He beat a bunch of long shots and faded stars over the next couple of years before getting knocked out by Lewis in the sixth round.

    That fight happened in October 1995. By February, Morrison had tested positive for HIV.

    He'd been preparing for another fight that winter when his blood test came back positive for the virus that causes AIDs. Morrison's license was quickly suspended by Nevada, and the ban was, in effect, upheld by every other sanctioning body. Morrison said at a news conference in 1996 that he'd never fight again, blaming his plight on a "permissive, fast and reckless lifestyle."

    His lifestyle never changed, though, even when he stepped away from the ring.

    He had already run afoul of the law in 1993, when he pleaded guilty to assaulting a college student. He also dealt with weapons charges and multiple DUI incidents over the years.

    Morrison was finally sentenced to two years in prison in 2000, and another year was added to his sentence in 2002 for violating parole.

    When he was released, Morrison said his HIV tests were in fact false positives, and he wanted to resume his career. He passed medical tests in Arizona – even as Nevada stood by its decision to suspend his license – and returned to the ring. Morrison fought twice more in his career, winning once in West Virginia and for the final time in Mexico. He finished with a record of 48-3-1 with 42 knockouts.

    Morrison started to fade from the public eye in the final years of his life. He tried to stay connected to the sport by opening a gym in Wichita, Kan., but the enterprise was short-lived.

    "If Tommy was fighting today, he no doubt would be a world champion," Holden said. "You have to look at who he was fighting in the `90s, the guys in that division were Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Rid**** Bowe, Ray Mercer, George Foreman. There's no one with that talent today. Tommy would absolutely dominate if he were in his prime boxing today."
    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    I missed the Morrison story.

    • No more of former heavyweight champ Tommy Morrison, who embarrassed two sports - boxing and mixed martial arts - in an MMA exhibition with fixed rules that allowed him to wear shoes and beat a barefooted foe in June at Cliff Castle Casino in Camp Verde.
    Gene Ching
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  4. #169
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    MMA safer?

    We've heard this position before and it stands to reason, given that the objective in boxing is more about the knock-out whereas in MMA, there are more ways to win. But presenting at the UFC Gym is like saying bacon is healthy at a pig slaughterhouse.

    Study by Sather Clinic's Dr. Shelby Karpman shows boxing causes more serious injuries than MMA
    By Con Griwkowsky, Edmonton Sun

    First posted: Thursday, November 05, 2015 05:28 PM MST | Updated: Thursday, November 05, 2015 07:54 PM MST


    Dr. Shelby Karpman of the U of A's Sather Clinic spoke on his study's findings at the UFC Gym in Sherwood Park on Thursday. (Perry Mah, Edmonton Sun)

    Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be boxers.

    If they’ve still got some fight left in them, MMA would be a much safer game.

    A study by lead author Dr. Shelby Karpman by the U of A’s Glen Sather Sports Medicine Clinic may have turned perceptions upside down about the relative brutality of the sports.

    Karpman and his group went through post-fight medical examinations from 1,181 MMA fights and 550-boxing bouts held in Edmonton between 2000-2013.

    The study showed that even though MMA fighters have a slightly higher risk of injury (59.8% MMA vs. 49.8% boxing), the type of injury boxers face, including concussions and other head traumas, tend to be more serious.

    “The general finding was, if you look at injury rates overall, there wasn’t a big difference,” said Karpman. “But there were more severe injuries in boxing than there are in mixed martial arts.”

    The difference is the fact that boxing focuses more on blows to the head, where MMA has different physical risks in its ground game.

    “We took all the data which was presented initially in a North American fight doctors conference in Orlando about four or five years ago,” said Karpman. “We decided to put it together on paper and publish it. It’s the largest study of its kind in mixed martial arts vs. boxing injuries.”

    MMA has a perception that it’s a much more brutal activity.

    “The problem is, and this is my perception, is the glorified and the real ugly stuff gets shown on TV,” said Karpman. “The guys who break their legs, the guys who get their faces split open. That’s the kind of stuff you see on the replays.

    “What you don’t see in the replay is the 99% of the other fights where the guy is choked out and they both get up, walk off the mat and there’s no scratches on either of them. So, you have a lot of misinformed people who see all those highlights and go, ‘Oh, you’ve got to ban this sport because it’s just too rough.’ ”

    While it’s true that both are forms of consensual violence, it’s not the only sports form in which injuries occur.

    “Look at hockey, look at football,” Karpman said. “The number of ridiculous hits. When New England Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley was laid out by Jack Tatum of the Oakland Raiders (in a 1978 pre-season game) and left him completely paralyzed, you didn’t hear anybody calling for the ban of football.

    “Yet, you see that stuff on TV. Yes, there have been deaths, but the percentage of deaths has been so small … there’s more deaths from common causes than there are from MMA.”

    Karpman said the perception is strong enough that some people were surprised by the results of the study.

    “There were people who were,” he said. “They expected to see a lot more injuries because they see the elbows flying, the choke holds and the rest of it. To see that and the difference in what we see is scrapes, cuts and bruises, I think that surprised a lot of people.”

    Edmonton Combative Sports Commission chair Pat Reid has noticed there’s plenty of recent pushback to both fighting forms from medical associations across Canada, led by the B.C. Association.

    “It’s fair to say the medical community does not like the existence of boxing and they’re no more enamoured with the MMA,” said Reid. “Although it’s consensual violence, medical doctors are there to protect people from themselves. They don’t like to see that — particularly now that young girls are getting into the sport. Being kicked in the head and so on is not something that people willingly accept.”

    Due to the nature of its kicks and blows, MMA was finally accepted by amendment to the Canadian Criminal Code of Canada in 2013.

    VETERAN EXPERIENCE

    Victor Valimaki had a brief 3-0 boxing career.

    With 14 years experience in the MMA game, he’s able to see things from a fighters’ perspective.

    Valimaki, manager of the UFC Gym in Sherwood Park, believes the U of A study that shows MMA to be safer than boxing is pretty accurate.

    “In my own career, it’s unfair to compare,” said Valimaki. “I’ve had some pretty bad injuries but because of my own experience, it’s unfair to compare them.”

    Valimaki had knee ligament damage in his most recent fight but it’s something that can be fixed.

    “I think the repeated shots to the head in boxing is the downfall,” said Valimaki. “In MMA, there’s a lot more ways to finish a fight. You can submit a guy and not even take one punch in the fight.”

    Boxing uses eight-once gloves while MMA’s gloves weight four ounces.

    “You would think that would lead to more damage being done,” said Valimaki. “You can’t keep taking the repeated shots that you can in boxing, so you take less head trauma.

    “Even certain friends of mine who are elite national boxers, I hear some of them slurring their words and heading down the punch-drunk kind of avenue.”

    Valimaki said he’s not surprised to hear MMA is safer than boxing.

    “I definitely think it is,” he said. “MMA gets a bad name because it looks brutal. I think the MMA athletes are the best athletes in the world. It just looks bad. You get a cut on the elbow and there’s blood spraying out everywhere and it looks bad, but it’s all superficial and it’s not major damage as opposed to a 250-pound linebacker jumping at your knees. I think MMA is one of the safer sports out there.”

    con.griwkowsky@sunmedia.ca
    Gene Ching
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  5. #170
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    Time to shine?

    With MMA Losing Steam, 2018 Is Boxing’s Time to Shine
    With the popularity and buzz surrounding MMA fading, boxing is poised to recapture the combat sports spotlight.
    BY WALLACE MATTHEWS
    Matthews has covered boxing since 1983 and followed the piece of Holyfield's ear on its journey covering the fight for the New York Post in 1997.
    FEB 13, 2018


    Conor McGregor, UFC's biggest star, has not fought in the octagon since November 2016. Image via Getty/Brandon Magnus/Zuffa LLC

    The vaulted ceilings and marble columns of New York's Cipriani’s were bathed in soft blue and red spotlights. Along the side walls of the magnificent room were two open bars, the bottles lined up like rows of soldiers, and the glassware sparkling under the arc lights. Tuxedoed waiters and waitresses carried trays of canapés while a giant TV toward the back of the room played an endless loop of high-resolution images.

    “I can’t believe this. It’s like the Academy Awards,’’ said one wide-eyed guest.

    More like the cocktail hour at the wedding of Don Corleone’s daughter. But the truth was even stranger than that.

    The formal affair was thrown in honor of Showtime Sports announcing its 2018 boxing schedule—or more accurately, for just the first six months of 2018—an ambitious slate of 10 shows featuring a dozen world title fights spread across a half-dozen locations. Not bad for a sport perpetually on the respirator, ravaged by a cascade of woes ranging from an aging fanbase, a dearth of compelling performers, and a formidable young challenger called mixed martial arts.

    But like a lot of popular narratives, this one turns out to be not entirely true. For one thing, boxing’s fanbase is getting younger, not older. For another, the fight game has seen an influx of young talent that gave boxing a much needed shot in the arm in 2017. Talk to the right people, and they'll tell you that the young interloper called MMA-slash-UFC may have peaked.

    While the Showtime announcement wasn't headline news around the sports world, the shockwaves were felt across the small landscape of combat sports. Most especially 2,000 miles away in Las Vegas. That’s where the Ultimate Fighting Championship is housed, from which president Dana White has been predicting the death of boxing at the hands of mixed martial arts for the better part of a decade.

    "My honest opinion of boxing is that boxing will go away," White said in 2010. "I don't wish it any ill will. It's not because the sport isn’t good or anything like that, it's just that it's so fragmented, and so many bad things have happened. Nobody is going to stick their hand in their own pocket and spend their own money to save the sport of boxing, nobody is going to do it."


    The explosion of MMA allowed UFC co-owners to cash out in 2016, selling it for a reported $4 billion. Image via Getty/Brandon Magnus/Zuffa LLC

    Well, approximately 25 years after its introduction, MMA and other submission-type combat sports seem to have run into a wall. The word industry insiders and observers use, time and again, is “plateaued.’’ So much for the popular narrative that MMA would be the asteroid that would render boxing, like the dinosaurs, into extinction.

    “It hasn’t happened and it’s not going to happen,’’ said Dave Meltzer, publisher of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and one of the main chroniclers of mixed martial arts since its inception approximately 25 years ago. “If boxing dies, it won’t be because of MMA. It will be because of boxing.’’

    Like Hyman Roth in The Godfather dying of that same heart attack for 20 years, boxing—which has existed in some form or for 5,000 years—continues to soldier on, and even to thrive in spite of itself.

    Boxing’s wounds have been self-inflicted. There's the fragmentation of its championships due to the rise of its corrupt “sanctioning organizations.’’ It's watered down titles by means of shoehorning “junior’’ divisions between the original eight weight classes. The decision to put all of its biggest events on Pay-Per-View is greedy and short-sighted, limiting the size of its audience to a small core of diehards.

    Still, the biggest sporting event of 2017 was, essentially, a boxing match: the freak event matching "retired" five-time world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. against UFC star Conor McGregor. The bout sold more than four million PPV subscriptions at an average of $100 per home, enriching the fighters to the tune of a reported $300 million for Mayweather and $100 million for McGregor, who as a boxer was making his professional debut.

    Take Mayweather-McGregor out of the equation and boxing still remains the undisputed champion of combat sports. Despite the hype, most of it flowing from the mouth of White, the bombastic face of UFC, the seven top-grossing combat sports events of all time are boxing matches, and if you include the outlier—Mayweather-McGregor—boxing has the top eight spots.


    Deontay Wilder and Berman Stiverne in 2017. The purses for the top performers in boxing compared to MMA are ridiculously inequitable. Image via Getty/Al Bello

    The purses for the top performers in each sport are ridiculously inequitable—again, removing McGregor’s estimated $100 million purse for the Mayweather circus from the mix. Boxing set the world on its ear nearly a half-century ago when Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were paid an unheard-of $2.5 million each for their epic 1971 battle.

    By the 1980s, it became routine for boxers in high-profile main events such as Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, and Larry Holmes to earn upwards of $10 million for a single night’s work. More than 20 years ago, Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson were paid $30 million each for their second fight, and as far back as 1927, Gene Tunney cashed a $1 million check for beating Jack Dempsey in the fabled Battle of the Long Count.

    And yet, no UFC main event had been guaranteed for anything even close, until the $800,000 paid to Anderson Silva in 2015. UFC’s first million-dollar guarantee went to McGregor in March 2016, and McGregor was arguably as big an attraction in MMA as Tyson had been in boxing. And it is impossible to know for sure what percentage, if any, of UFC’s formidable Pay-Per-View revenue actually goes to the fighters.

    A big part of the reason is that unlike boxers, MMA fighters are not protected by the Muhammad Ali Act—a federal law enacted in 2000 to ensure physical and financial protection for boxers. MMA fighters, even the stars, have very little power to negotiate their own purses.

    It is true that undercard fighters on MMA events often are paid more than boxers in a similar position. UFC contracts generally call for a minimum $10,000 purse with a matching bonus if the fighter wins, but those fighters are usually far more experienced than their counterparts who fight in boxing preliminaries.

    And because of White’s all-powerful position as the one and only real promoter of his sport, there is no comparable outlet for MMA fighters to peddle their skills. It is not unlike the way Vince McMahon runs WWE, in which matches were marketed as events more than matchups of individual fighters, which kept the athletes subservient to the organization.

    As a result, MMA/UFC has been unable to develop young stars to take the place of McGregor and Ronda Rousey. Combat sports, which thrive as much on personality as performance—like Mayweather and McGregor—wither when the fighters become faceless and interchangeable.

    “My thought is we’ve kind of hit a plateau,’’ said Chris Palmquist, a combat sports journalist who is the COO of MMA.tv. “We’ve definitely seen it. Doesn’t mean it won’t get out of that plateau and grow again. There was an explosion three or four years ago, but the loss of stars like (Ronda) Rousey has hurt, and McGregor hasn’t fought in MMA in over a year.’’
    continued next post
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  6. #171
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    Continued from previous post


    Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter in 2016. A recent Washington Post/UMass Lowell poll revealed that 28 percent of U.S. sports called themselves fans of boxing, as opposed to 25 percent for MMA. Image via Getty/Ed Mulholland

    Currently, boxing's star power outshines MMA with heavyweights like Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua; welterweights like Errol Spence Jr., Terence Crawford, Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, Danny Garcia, and Jeff Horn; and middleweights like Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin.

    Right now the biggest name in MMA is probably George St-Pierre, who had to be lured out of retirement to provide the UFC with an attraction to replace McGregor. And St-Pierre, or GSP, as he is known, is suffering from an illness that night keep him out of the octagon for all of 2018.

    Rousey announced her future is in wrestling and no one knows if the unpredictable McGregor—who shouted, “Watch me take over boxing!’’—will ever fight again, in the octagon or in a boxing ring.

    To illustrate the dearth of quality attractions in MMA/UFC these days, insiders talk of a projected bout between the oft-suspended Jon Jones and 40-year-old Brock Lesnar as a “dream matchup.’’ As a result, not only has MMA not pulled away from boxing, as many expected, it has in fact lagged behind.

    “MMA had big declines in everything but revenue in 2017,’’ Meltzer said. “And the revenue increases were all because of one fight [Mayweather-McGregor].’’

    The explosion of MMA a couple of years ago, allowed White, the president of UFC, and Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, the co-owners, to cash out in 2016, selling UFC to the William Morris Endeavor-International Marketing Group for a reported $4 billion.

    "THE BOOK ON UFC HAS YET TO BE WRITTEN. BUT IT'S PRETTY CLEAR THAT REPORTS OF THE DEATH OF BOXING ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED."

    A big part of the sales pitch to WME-IMG was that UFC, which was near the end of a $168 million TV deal with Fox Sports, would be renewed for something like $400 million in 2018, according to industry insiders. But negotiations have reportedly have hit a snag, with Fox offering something like $200 million, due to declining ratings in 2017.

    The primary reason for that decline is because MMA, and particularly UFC, has not performed as expected with its much sought-after younger demographic.

    White was quoted as saying, “UFC is definitely a younger guy’s sport. Our target audience is anywhere from age 17 to 35," but in actuality the audience is getting older. According to a Sports Business Journal report published in June, MMA had a decidedly younger audience than boxing in 2006. The median age of an individual identifying as an MMA fan was 34. The median age of a boxing fan was 47.

    Ten years later, Sports Business Journal says the median age for fans of both sports was exactly the same: 49. Which means, of course, that while the original MMA/UFC crowd has aged, the sport has not attracted many younger fans.

    Perhaps most surprisingly, the median age for boxing and MMA was younger than that of the NFL (50), college football and basketball (52), and MLB (57). Only the NBA (42) and MLS (40) had younger audiences, respectively. And a recent Washington Post/UMass Lowell poll revealed that 28 percent of U.S. sports fans called themselves fans of boxing, as opposed to 25 percent for MMA.


    Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather in 2017. McGregor is estimated to have earned a $100 million purse for putting on the gloves vs. Mayweather last August. Image via Getty/Christian Petersen

    The truth is, while professing to have learned from the mistakes of boxing promoters—“I watch boxing to see how not to do it,’’ White has said—UFC has, in fact, repeated many of boxing’s most egregious errors by watering down its championships, creating “interim’’ titles, and over-saturating the marketplace with too many events, a mistake the NFL seems to be making as well.

    And due to complaints from some of its athletes about their inability to negotiate purses in line with UFC’s astronomical profits, MMA might soon find itself compelled to abide by the provisions of the Muhammad Ali Act. A hearing was held on Capitol Hill in November on the matter, with Randy Couture, one of the UFC’s biggest former stars, giving strong testimony in favor of regulation.

    “The book on UFC has yet to be written,’’ said Stephen Espinoza, the president of Showtime Sports, “but it’s pretty clear that reports of the death of boxing are greatly exaggerated.’’

    Espinoza worked with Dana White on the Mayweather-McGregor promotion, an association that ended acrimoniously when White accused Showtime of under-reporting the bout’s PPV numbers.

    White, who declined a request to be interviewed for this story, went public with their feud, calling Espinoza “a weasel,’’ and vowing never to work with Showtime again.

    But where, exactly, will he work next?

    Although he retains his position as president of the UFC, in November White told the Los Angeles Times, “I’m getting into boxing 100 percent.’’

    Of all the available evidence showing that boxing has more than wrestled MMA to a draw, that might be most telling of all.
    Personally, I've always felt that boxing is a better stadium sport. You can see the action from ****her away. For MMA, I always end up watching the bulk of it on the big screen monitors.

    Thread: Boxing
    Thread: Boxing vs. MMA
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  7. #172
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    Claressa Shields

    Sports
    Boxing champion Claressa Shields signs contract to join world of mixed martial arts
    Updated 8:50 AM; Today 8:50 AM

    Claressa Shields has won world boxing championships in three divisions. (Jake May | MLive.com)Jake May

    By Brendan Savage | bsavage@mlive.com
    FLINT – Claressa Shields is crossing over to the world of mixed martial arts.

    Shields, who has won three world boxing titles faster than anyone in history – male or female – has signed a contract to join the Professional Fighters League, the organization announced in a press release Tuesday Dec. 1.

    PFL said Shields “will look to enter the 2022 PFL Season after a series of special attraction fights in 2021.”

    Shields, a two-time Olympic boxing gold medalist from Flint, has a 10-0-0 record with two knockouts as a professional but hasn’t fought since last January because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Shields has dubbed herself the Greatest Woman Of All-Time and has become the face of women’s boxing.

    “I want to thank Professional Fighters League and (CEO) Peter Murray for believing in me and giving me this amazing opportunity,” Shields said in a prepared statement. “What drew me to the PFL is that it is definitely a fighter-first organization, and I can’t wait to be a part of that.

    “Since turning pro it has been my goal to be the GWOAT and to be a two-sport star like Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders. I want to go where no man or woman has gone and hold championships in both boxing and MMA at the same time.

    “I can’t wait to get to work.”

    Signing with PFL doesn’t mean Shields’ boxing days are over.

    “Claressa will continue to box professionally as she embarks on her multi-year PFL MMA career,” Murray said. “Fans will get to experience her professional MMA debut in 2021, which can be seen across the United States via ESPN, as well as in 160 countries all over the world,”

    “She has transcended sports and has become a global icon, and an inspiration to aspiring young athletes. Claressa is an incredible human being, a bona-fide star athlete, and has an amazing story.”

    The 2021 PFL season begins April 23 and will continue April 29, May 6, June 10, June 17 and June 25. There will be a regular season and playoffs leading up to a championship bout with a $1 million top prize.

    Bouts will be broadcast on ESPN2 and ESPN+.

    Shields was scheduled to fight Canada’s Marie-Eve Dicaire (17-0, 0 KOs) for the undisputed super welterweight championship May 9 in Flint when the coronavirus forced its postponement.

    Her promoter, Dmitriy Salita, said the fight vs. Dicaire is still in the works and will take place once a TV date is finalized. Shields has become a headliner on Showtime boxing cards.

    In her only fight this year, Shields recorded a unanimous decision over Croatia’s Ivana Habazin Jan.10 to win the undisputed junior middleweight championship. She previously won championships in the middleweight and super middleweight divisions.
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