Claressa Shields is the greatest woman boxer of all time — and she knows it.
Recently, the middleweight champion stopped by rolling out and held back no punches when discussing her career and challengers.
First of all, congratulations on being a top 10 rolling out athlete of 2023.
Me?
You are. You were top 10.
Thank you!
Do you want to hear the list?
Yeah!
You were No. 10. Simone Biles was No. 9. Tank Davis was No. 8. Lamar Jackson at No. 7. Jayden Daniels, the Heisman winner, No. 6. No. 5, and I have A’ja Wilson. No. 4, I have LeBron James. No. 3, Angel Reese. No. 2, Sha’Carri Richardson and Coco Gauff at No. 1.
OK. I mean, if this is the order. I feel like you can have Coco, and then you can have me. Because, we’re not throwing shade at anybody, but we’re talking about two Olympic gold medals. I can’t believe you have Simone Biles so high when she has so many gold medals. Probably because it wasn’t an Olympic year, I’ll give you that.
Angel Reese hasn’t gone to the WNBA yet. She got that one championship. I’m proud of her. The other guy [Jayden Daniels], I don’t know him, but I’m two. You can make Simone Biles three, and then you can list the other people.
Ten is cool, though. I don’t have a problem with it.
There weren’t 10 people that had a better 2023 than you.
I believe that.
Is Alycia Baumgardner dodging you?
I hate talking about things that are not possible. You’re fighting at 130, I fight at 160. You think the medium is you come in at 147, gaining weight in camp. And then I have to bust my a– and do a whole lot of stuff to get down to 147?
I’m good when I’m the head honcho. I’m the H.B.I.C.
I don’t know where she gets off trying to call me out, but everybody knows that I would hulk-smash Alycia Baumgardner. Everybody knows that.
She wants her name in the same sentence as mine, and every time somebody does it, they have to double-take and be like, “Clearly, if Claressa wanted to do her dirt, she could.” Of course. It’s the reason we haven’t gotten in the ring and sparred. Why she doesn’t even get in the ring and spar with me? I don’t even go hard on women in sparring.
I don’t know where she got off with that, but I don’t care. I’m H.B.I.C. Any girl who wants smoke with me, they can come to 154, they can come to 160, and they can get this work, but I’m not going to 147.
Y’all would wreck the internet, though.
You think that, but you aren’t talking to someone who, if they walked in this room, most other people wouldn’t know who they were.
You’re talking to me. I’m getting stopped every two seconds at every station.
You’ve been getting stopped in between interviews.
Exactly.
And then, you’re talking to somebody who sold 12,000 tickets in Detroit versus somebody who sold 2,000 tickets in Detroit at The Masonic, which holds 4,5000. There is no comparison.
Look, you might have a couple of thirsty guys on social media who like you or whatever. But are they going to buy those tickets and come to your fight? Because 12,000 of them came to mine. Men and women, plus children. Who is your audience?
If your audience is as big as mine because she has maybe 500 or 600 [thousand Instagram followers], how come your followers aren’t coming to the fight? I was there when she fought at the Masonic because “we were friends,” and I supported her. So, I saw that there were 2,000, maybe 2,500 tickets. I was there when they were outside giving away free tickets to come to your fight. So don’t freakin’ act like we’re on the same level — we’re not.
[Baumgardner is the] a one-time undisputed [super featherweight champion] plus a little PEDs?
Then you have [Shields], three-time undisputed [champion in three divisions]. I never had any PEDs in my system, never failed a drug test, been to the Olympics twice, 13-time world champion, so it’s just levels.
I don’t like people asking me about her. We were cool — and now we’re not cool.
