Women’s boxing is hot right now and it’s about to get even hotter. According to Michael Rothstein of ESPN.com, two women’s unification fights will take place at The O2 in London on September 10th. We have been waiting for the intense grudge-match that is Claressa Shields-Savannah Marshall, and it has now been announced how the fight will headline on September 10, and that female warriors Mikaela Mayer and Alycia Baumgardner will get it on in a 130 pound unification clash on the same card. Talk about a show that cannot fail to deliver!
Shields and Marshall, both unbeaten and between them holding all the middleweight titles, have as we know been going back and forth for months. Marshall holds an amateur win over Shields, this the sole blot on Claressa’s record (save for a loss in MMA) and Shields wants to avenge it bad. Very much a stand-alone fight, Shields Vs. Marshall will now be given a real run for fight of the night by the Mayer-Baumgardner supporting feature.
31 year old Mayer holds the WBO and IBF super-featherweight titles, while 27 year old Gardner is the WBC champion. Both women have given us some terrific action in the ring and there seems to be no way the fight between them is not a great one. Mayer’s November 2021 war with Maiva Hamadouche was one of the best action fights of last year, while Baumgardner’s disturbing KO of Terri Harper, also from last November, was, well, disturbing.
Credit to both women for wanting to lay it all on the line in this unification clash. Who wins this one? It’s tough to say, for a number of reasons; as it is tough to predict a winner from the Shields-Marshall fight. Mayer has had more experience, Baumgardner is the harder puncher. Mayer has never lost a fight, Baumgardner has tasted defeat (this at the hands of Christina Linardatou back in 2018, the fight being a split decision win for Linardatou).
We got a classic women’s fight with the recent Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano battle, and Shields-Marshall and Mayer-Baumgardner could be just as good, just as special. Tickets for the September show can be expected to go fast.
With women’s boxing being at such a high quality right now, the men are having to fight hard to keep up. Some people feel women should fight three-minute rounds as men do, while others feel those two-minute sessions are the key to ensuring the kind of blazing action we’ve been treated to.
You can now brace yourself for two more potentially superb, all-action women’s fights. An official announcement of these two fights is expected to come next week.
