CNN
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Face-to-face for the promotional photoshoot, and the fight between British Savannah Marshall and American Claressa Shields has already begun.
“I have a lot of confidence,” Shields taunted Marshall as the camera flashed, “I came here, come to America.”
“But no power,” Marshall replied.
The two women, whose bitter rivalry dates back 10 years, will go head-to-head for the undisputed middleweight championship in London on Saturday in a historic night for women’s boxing that marks the first-ever all-female card in Britain, as well as the first time two women will be in be the O2 Arena headliner.
It’s the latest milestone in a historic year for the sport, with Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano becoming the first women ever to make headlines at Madison Square Gardens in May.
Women’s boxing was not banned in the UK until 1998, and the Marshall-Shields rivalry spans almost half the time the sport was legal.
It started at the 2012 AIBA World Championship when Marshall emerged victorious 14-8 on points and inflicted the only loss she has ever suffered on Shields in her professional or amateur career.
Marshall won that world championship a few days later, while a then 17-year-old Shields won the Olympics a few months later.
As two opposites, both in terms of fighting style and personality – Shields is outspoken and fights with finesse, while Marshall is more timid and relies on power – they have always clashed.
“It’s a love-hate relationship,” Shields told CNN’s Amanda Davies.
“I’m glad I finally get the chance to show her that you may have won the battle in 2012, but you won’t win the war. It’s a war, you know what I’m saying. She’s going to lose this Saturday and then all the talk of the last 10 years will go away, it will go away because that’s the only thing she has to live on.
Since that fight in 2012, Shields has built her reputation as one of the greatest fighters of all time – going undefeated, winning two Olympic gold medals and becoming the only boxer in history to win all four major world titles simultaneously in two weight classes.
“I’m not [using that fight as motivation]’ added Shields. “I’m not a person who cares about something that happened 10 years ago.
“I don’t care, but what I do know is that I’ve gotten better over the years and I’ve challenged myself to get better after every fight… So I’ve never been able to live on a win or really embrace a win or anything . You just win and move on.”
Marshall, on the other hand, was knocked out of the preliminary rounds at the London and Rio Olympics, suffered from social anxiety and considered retiring from boxing before turning pro in 2017 and building her own imposing reputation.
Both Marshall and Shields go into this fight with a 12-0 record, the former as WBO titlists and the latter as unified WBC, WBA, and IBF 160-pound champions.
“It’s been a long time, 10 years ago, it doesn’t mean anything but like I said before it gets under her skin, it pisses her off so obviously I’ll bring it up,” Marshall told Sky Sports.
“I know everything I need to know about Claressa, I’ve known her a long time, I’ve seen a lot of her fights, it was just a matter of staying sharp and going through the game plan a little bit more.”
They will do their ring walks on Saturday at 9:40 p.m. after the world super featherweight title clash between Mikaela Mayer and Alycia Baumgardner.