During her middleweight title defense in Detroit on Saturday night, when Claressa Shields unleashed a looping right hand, the punch occasionally made contact, cutting challenger Maricela Cornejo’s jaw or cutting her. Sometimes it bounced off my left shoulder.
But when Shields, 28, threw her right hand straight into Cornejo’s face, she rarely let go. Her counter-left hooks to the head and body, combined with hard tempo-setting jabs, produced a familiar result for Saturday’s game.
All three judges scored all 10 rounds for Shields, and the undisputed middleweight champion’s accuracy and aggressiveness left the scorecards undisputed.
But winning his 12th bout by decision against just two knockouts left Shields again with persistent doubts about his performance. Why has such a dominant fighter won so few fights by KO?
“Height doesn’t matter, power doesn’t matter,” said Shields, the current unbeaten middleweight champion with 14-0, 2 KOs. “It’s all a matter of skill and will and heart, and I will always have that more than all those girls.”
In the seventh round, Shields landed a left hook to Cornejo’s stomach before sending him staggering with a hard right. A bona fide knockout artist might have ended the fight here.
But with the end-of-round bell ringing, Cornejo escaped further damage, giving some clues as to why Shields’ knockout percentage seems so lackluster considering her flawless record.
First, there is the format.
The men’s title fight is scheduled for 12 rounds, with each round lasting three minutes. Women’s rounds last just two minutes each, and title fights are limited to 10 rounds. With an extra minute in the seventh round, Shields could have landed a punch or a flat that could have stopped the bout.
And if given the same 36 minutes of work time as the men, Shields might stop more opponents in attrition, if not a single puncher. (Conversely, more men’s title fights could end in decisions if they were only given 20 minutes every two minutes.)
Shields’ opponents also play a role.
Many professional candidates put up an easy fight to advance their early career records, regardless of gender. Instead, Shields fought for the world title in his fourth professional bout. All of her opponents are high level professionals with the skill and endurance that go with championship level boxing. Her loss to Shields brought Cornejo’s record to 16-6 with 6 KOs.
“I put pressure on him to go for the knockout,” Shields said. “Maricela is just tough.”
Cornejo accepted the fight less than two weeks after his original opponent, Hannah Gabriels, failed a doping test.
When the opening bell rang, Shields took a position in the center of the ring while Cornejo, who is 5 feet 10 inches tall and two inches taller than Shields, circled around the perimeter of the ring. Shields missed with a wild righthand, but he landed a left hook on Cornejo. The Fighters then threw a right simultaneously, but Shields was the only one to land.
The first few blows didn’t hurt Cornejo’s confidence.
The 36-year-old candidate moved to Las Vegas in April to begin working with Cuban immigrant boxing trainer Ismael Salas, who has led several boxers to world titles. Cornejo said before the fight that a short time at Salas’ gym had already made her a smarter boxer and a stronger puncher. Between her rounds, Sarath tried to reassure her.
“You hit harder than her!” he shouted to Cornejo in Spanish after Game 4.
An inspired Cornejo scored a straight right to open the fifth round. Shields responded with a few percussive punches and stayed on track.
“You got her attention. You paid her respect,” Seals trainer John David Jackson said between rounds. “Now you have to go to her girlfriend. You have to get her girlfriend engaged.”
Organizers sought to highlight a rendition of the fight in Detroit, about 110 miles south of where Shields grew up in Flint, Michigan. Before the opening bells, legendary Motown quartet Four Tops sang the national anthem, and Shields donned his costume. He stepped into the ring in a glittering gold and green two-piece kit, accompanied by Detroit-based rapper Kash Doll.
Some of Detroit’s most famous boxing luminaries attended the bout. Veteran director Jackie Cullen, whose life inspired the fictional film Against the Rope, was also in attendance. So did Kronx Gym head coach Sugarhill Steward, who changed his name from Javan Hill in 2019 in honor of his late uncle Emmanuel Steward, who founded the training center. Detroit boxers at ringside included former welterweight champion Milton McCrory, who trained at Kronk, and his famous stablemate Thomas Hearns.
They watched as the Seals picked up more wins and began the cycle of searching for future opponents again. Shields has so many wins in his career that he monitors four weight classes, from 168-pound super-middleweight to 147-pound welterweight, for possible bouts.
He is also considering a rematch with a former rival.
After Saturday’s victory, Shields will return to Detroit and is interested in taking on the winner of the super-middleweight title fight between Franchon Cruz-Dezrun and Savannah Marshall, scheduled for July 1 in Manchester, England. said.
Shields has already defeated both of those boxers. By decision.
