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Don’t expect to see boxing star Claressa Shields in the cage again.
Two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-division boxing champion Shields announced that she is officially retired from MMA after just three fights in which she went 2-1. Her most recent appearance came in February 2024 when she scored a split decision win over Kelsey DeSantis at PFL vs. Bellator: Champions at Kingdom Arena in Saudi Arabia.
“MMA is done, sweetheart,” Shields said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “It was fun, but I don’t have enough time to train for it. It takes six to eight months just to get ready to defend takedowns. Even though I got a lot better, I put in time, I got my arm broken twice. It was fun, and I enjoyed every fight I did. One, my family never wanted me to do it. I did it because I wanted to prove a point, and I proved that point to myself three times, but you can say twice because I won twice, I proved that point. I was offered one more fight with the PFL, and it would have been against a girl who was probably on my level.
“I got into a new relationship, and he can’t even handle me boxing. He’s going crazy when I’m fighting, even when I’m dominating. We had a talk, and he was like, ‘I cannot handle MMA.’ He was like, ‘Can you please not do that anymore?’ I was like, ‘OK.’ It just takes a lot of time to train for MMA, time that I don’t have. I did have aspirations of becoming a PFL MMA world champion and having a fight with Kayla Harrison or Larissa Pacheco one day. I did have those dreams, I did have those aspirations, but there’s just not enough time. I’m great already in boxing, and to be great like that in MMA, I would have to train for at least three, four years consistently. I did really good in MMA. It was fun, but it was too hard.”
In 2020, Shields decided to begin training MMA and made her debut in 2021. She scored a third-round TKO over Brittney Elkin at 2021 PFL 4 to win her first professional bout. However, in her second fight, Shields dropped a split decision to Abigail Montes before returning to the win column with a win over DeSantis. Shields went 2-1 under the PFL banner in three years as a pro in MMA.
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