Claressa Shields believes heavyweight is her natural weight class

Women’s heavyweight title holder Claressa Shields, having fought at junior middleweight and super middleweight for most of her career, thinks that the heavyweight division is where she is most comfortable and where she should have started. 

Shields looks to become a three-division undisputed champion as she faces Danielle Perkins on Sunday in her hometown of Flint, Michigan where the favorite will fight at the Dort Financial Center for the second time in her career. 

Shields, 29, has one of the best CVs in all of boxing. She is a decorated amateur boxer who won two Olympic gold medals. She became undisputed champion in two weight classes. Yet she now believes she wasn’t even at her best in those divisions. 

“I was fighting at 154lbs for the history. I fought at 160lbs for the history. I fought at 168 for the history,” Shields said. “I’m at 175lbs because I feel like this was the weight class I was supposed to be at from the beginning.”

Earlier this week, when speaking with BoxingScene, Shields explained she never saw boxing as male or female sport. She just saw it as a sport. Shields channeled her inner Mike Tyson with some classic rhythmic trash talk: “My defense is impeccable. You know my speed is untraceable. You know I am punching like a heavyweight and I am not a real heavyweight. You know what is going on.” 

Perkins, 42, who is from Brooklyn, New York, but resides in Houston, won a bronze and gold in international competition as an amateur. Perkins is 5-0 (2 KOs) and turned pro in 2020, but has had a difficult time finding opponents evidenced by her never going 10 rounds. 

Shields, however, acknowledged that Perkins is a natural heavyweight. “We are not benching (bench pressing) right now,” Shields, 15-0 (3 KOs) said. “She might be stronger. I can’t hold her 90-pound dumbbell, but I can do 50. Just know I have prepared over time for Danielle.”