Claressa Shields Makes History in Style!
Under the hot lights of Ocean Resort Casino, unified middleweight champion Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (10-0, 2 KO’s) made history in dominant fashion. There she battered, bruised and dropped her Croatian foe Ivana Habazin (20-4, 7 KO’s) en route to a ten-round unanimous decision. With the victory, T-Rex picked up the vacant WBC and WBO super welterweight titles. This officially makes here the quickest fighter in history to win titles in three separate divisions.
Ahead of their match, the two fighters had more than enough time to build up a healthy dislike for the other. This is due to the two reschedules preceding the actual bout. The first postponement was due to injury, while the second delay was due to bloody assault. Both promised that they would trounce and stop the other within the distance.
HOW IT HAPPENED
In the end, Shields made good on the beat down, but not the knockout. Although, T-Rex did drop Habazin with a body shot in the sixth period. From the very first round, it was clear that Habazin was outclassed and had no stomach for a true toe-to-toe bout.
Outside of jabbing her way in to immediately clinch there was not much to report as far as the offense that Habazin brought to the ring. It would have been very interesting to see how the prizefight would have developed had referee Sparkle Lee given Habazin a hard warning for holding prior to the eighth round.
For her part, Shields displayed a vast array of punches, a sharp and crisp jab along with an impressive body attack. At different portions of the match, T-Rex committed to and sat down on a number of grimace-inducing shots to the ribs.
There were several points in the second half of the fight when it appeared that Habazin wanted to hop out the ring. However, she endured her whole strapping until the end of regulation. Unsurprisingly, the scorecards would have Claressa Shields victorious by the huge margins of 100-90, 100-89 and 99-89.
In her post-fight interview, Shields expressed her interest in facing WBA and IBF super middleweight champion Elin Cederroos (8-0, 4 KO’s), who beat Alicia Napolean-Espinoza in the opening bout of the night.
By: Bakari Simpson
