Claressa Shields beats Dicaire to become first four-belt champion at two weights

Claressa Shields won a unanimous decision over Canada’s Marie-Eve Dicaire in their junior middleweight title unification bout Friday night, becoming the first boxer in the four-belt era, male or female, to become an undisputed champion in two different weight classes.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist from the United States won 100-90 on all three cards in the headline attraction, which marked the first time in 20 years a women’s boxing match was the main event of a pay-per-view.

Shields (11-0) was fighting in her hometown of Flint – in a matchup that was previously scheduled for 9 May before being called off because of the coronavirus. Shields also had a fight scheduled against Ivana Habazin in Flint in 2019, but that was scrapped after an altercation before the weigh-in. Shields eventually defeated Habazin in a rescheduled fight in New Jersey.

Shields landed 116 of 409 punches (28%), compared to 31 of 263 for Dicaire (12%).

With the win over Dicaire (17-1), Shields became the unified WBC, WBO, IBF and WBA champion at 154lbs. She had previously unified all four of the major sanctioning body belts at 160lbs with a points win over Christina Hammer in April 2019.

Shields said she will take a week to celebrate her birthday and before setting up camp in New Mexico ahead of her mixed martial arts debut in June.

Also Friday, Danielle Perkins (3-0) outpointed Monika Harrison (2-2) to win the WBC silver heavyweight championship, bantamweight Jamie Mitchell (6-0-2) stopped Noemi Bosques (12-16-3) in the fifth round, and 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Marlen Esparza (9-1) outpointed Shelly Barnett (4-4-2) in another bantamweight fight.