Savannah Marshall (13-1, 10 KOs) dethroned female undisputed super middleweight champion Franchon Crews-Dezurn (8-2, 2 KOs) by a 10 round majority decision on Saturday night at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. The scores were 99-92, 97-93, and 95-95.
Crews-Dezurn looked sloppy & disappointing tonight, rushing forward and getting nailed by right hands from the taller, leaner, and more agile Marshall.
Each round was the same, with Crews-Dezurn ducking her head and charging Marshall, throwing wild swings, and then grabbing her in a clinch to wrestle, lean & rest her bulk.
Part of the reason Crews-Dezurn was doing so much holding was because she was badly fatigued from carrying around all that weight. It looked like she trained for a five round fight, and once the bout went past the midway point, her gas tank was completely empty.
She was doing a lot of falling in with each shot, mauling Marshall, and not getting working in there. It appeared that Crews-Dezurn was 20 lbs overweight and too fat to work properly.
Besides the saddlebags that she was carrying, her advancing age might have been a problem.
At 36, Crews-Dezurn isn’t the young kitten that she once was, and the combination of age & excess weight that she was carrying around was too much for her tonight against the slightly younger 32-year-old Marshall.
The victory for the 32-year-old Marshall now gives her the bait that she needs to get her badly-needed rematch with the unbeaten Claressa ‘T-Rex’ Shields, who beat her by a ten round unanimous decision last October in Greenwich, England.
Savannah Marshall: “She (Crews-Dezurn) is a tough, tough woman. I thought she came on stronger, some of the rounds were close but I felt landed the better shots.”
Claressa Shields: “I will fight her at whatever weight she wants to fight at. She is going to get beat up… that’s what is going to happen.
“[I saw] a lot of weaknesses, and she didn’t learn from her last fight. I agreed with the first judge, who had it 95-95. The fight was close – I expected a better performance from both girls.”
Watching the action tonight seems to have awakened Clarressa’s competitive spirit, making her want to fight Marshall again. She should have done it already but opted to take a soft defense against the ill-equipped Maricela Cornejo last month.
