In boxing, each hero is a villain in another person’s story. For Claressa Shields and Amanda Serrano, the strains between admiration and rivalry have all the time been blurred.
Each are pioneers of girls’s boxing, breaking data and pushing the game ahead. But, whereas Shields proudly calls herself the “GWOAT” (Biggest Girl of All Time), Serrano has remained detached to the title, subtly dismissing Shields’ outspoken claims.
Although they’ve by no means confronted off within the ring, an unstated stress lingers between them. And lately, Shields reignited the dialog, suggesting that assist in ladies’s boxing is not all the time mutual.
Claressa Shields feels the divide
Throughout an interview with FightHype TV, Shields mirrored on her dynamic with Serrano, making it clear that she has all the time revered her fellow champion.
“I used to be a fan of hers earlier than Jake Paul, and I am a fan now,” Shields mentioned, referring to Serrano’s partnership with MVP Promotions.
However regardless of her admiration, Shields cannot ignore a noticeable divide. She has made it some extent to attend main ladies’s boxing occasions, together with all of Serrano’s fights in opposition to Katie Taylor. But, on the subject of her personal bouts, she feels the assist is not reciprocated.
“I need you guys to take a look at one thing,” Shields challenged.
“Take a look at all the ladies’s fights I am going to, after which take a look at mine. See who’s displaying up-and who is not.”
She particularly referenced her latest undisputed heavyweight struggle in Michigan, a historic second for girls’s boxing.
“I struggle for equal pay, equal alternatives, equal TV time. However once you come to my fights, go searching and inform me which feminine fighters are there,” she identified.
Regardless of feeling ignored, Shields refuses to cease combating for girls’s boxing. She has confirmed she’ll be ringside at Madison Sq. Backyard on July 11 for the Taylor-Serrano trilogy, proving that, no matter any underlying tensions, she stays devoted to supporting the game.
Serrano, in the meantime, has carved her personal legacy. She lately turned the highest-paid feminine boxer in historical past and continues to push ladies’s boxing to new heights. With one other huge occasion on the horizon, she is going to as soon as once more put the highlight on the game.
The query remains-will these two icons ever really acknowledge their rivalry? Or will their paths proceed to run parallel, shaping ladies’s boxing in their very own methods? One factor is for certain: they’re each defining figures within the sport, whether or not they see eye to eye or not.
