Natasha Jonas respects Claressa Shields’ ambition, but says there’s ‘nobody left for her to fight’

Claressa Shields looked strong, fast and happy on Wednesday afternoon as she went through a media workout ahead of her fight with WBC heavyweight titleholder Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse, which takes place in Detroit on Saturday.

In an interview published earlier this week on BoxingScene, Shields, the undisputed middleweight champion, revealed that when she began to look around for her next challenge, rather than jumping up two weight divisions, her initial plan was to move the other way – down the weight scale – and return to junior middleweight for a clash with IBF welterweight titleholder Natasha Jonas.

Shields (14-0, 2 KOs) said that the matchup couldn’t be made “because she didn’t want to fight me.”

Jonas (15-2-1, 9 KOs) told BoxingScene that although the fight was discussed, the trail went cold a long time ago.

“There was talks – I think it was at the end of last year – about me going back up to 154 pounds and her coming down. We were back and forth for ages,” Jonas said. “Her team were saying that if she can’t make the weight – because she hadn’t made 154 pounds for over a year – can we do the fight at a catchweight of 156 pounds or 158 pounds? I was saying, ‘Well, not really. I’m weighing in at 148 pounds with my clothes on. I don’t really want to be any higher, because I’m not gonna be there.’ There was other stuff as well, to be fair, that we were back and forth on, and eventually it couldn’t be done.

“For me, that was the end of the Claressa chat. She went off and went back to what she was doing, and I stayed at 147 pounds. So then, she starts arguing with [Alycia] Baumgardner, saying that she’d come down to 147 pounds and beat her there. If you can make 147 pounds, come down. The ball’s in my court, then, but I haven’t heard anything from Claressa or her team since the 154-pound talks, and that was last December and January.”

Instead, Shields decided to move up and pick a fight with Lepage-Joanisse (7-1, 2 KOs).

The fight with Canada’s Lepage-Joanisse has been made at 175 pounds, and Shields has indicated that she will weigh in at her heaviest ever – certainly her heaviest since she scaled 167 pounds for a super middleweight title fight with Tori Nelson in 2018.

Jonas knows exactly what is involved in making a successful jump in weight.

After drawing with then-WBC junior lightweight titleholder Terri Harper and losing a tight decision to Katie Taylor in a bid for the undisputed lightweight title, Jonas reinvented herself in 2022 by jumping all the way up to junior middleweight and winning the WBO world title. The move reignited her career and Jonas capitalized on the momentum. She went on a tear, quickly adding the WBC and IBF titles to her collection and becoming the first woman to win the British Boxing Board of Control’s prestigious Boxer of the Year award. Jonas then dropped down to welterweight, won the IBF title and recorded a career-best victory over Mikaela Mayer in January.

Shields is the best women’s fighter in the world and doesn’t – or at least shouldn’t – need to reinvent herself. But given the lack of qualified challengers at her preferred weights, the move to heavyweight does inject the kind of intrigue and jeopardy that has been missing for much of her outstanding career. It is also calculated, smart and opportunistic.

Shields operates in a different league than that of Lepage-Joanisse and could easily turn her quest to become a four-division champion into an out-and-out exhibition.

Jonas understands and respects Shields’ decision to go up in weight in search of a challenge and further recognition. Experience has taught Jonas that a few extra pounds are unlikely to cause Shields too many problems. 

“It’s tough, because for Claressa – for anyone – you can only fight who’s in front of you,” she said. “I was a super featherweight at one time. So was Terri Harper. There’s a reason why we go up. It’s just easier. The opportunities are there and it’s easier to win. The depth in the division is not like it is at super feather, lightweight or super lightweight. It’s not the same.

“[Shields has] made a few comments on X recently, but there’s no pleasing her. They’re just the facts. It is easier to win, but, respectfully, she can only beat who’s in front of her.

“She’s at a point where she’s come over and she’s beaten everyone. There’s no one else for her to fight. She literally hasn’t got nowhere else to go. Then she starts piping off at Lauren [Price, the WBA welterweight titleholder]. She starts piping off at me. She starts piping off at Baumgardner. It’s because she needs to do that to talk her way into a fight, because there’s nobody left for her to fight.”