☆June 3/Little Ceasars Arena, Detroit, Michigan, USA
SALITA PROMOTIONS
WBC・WBA・IBF・WBO Female Middleweight Championship 10rounds
○Claressa Shields（USA）Champion
●Maricela Cornejo（USA）WBC#1・IBF#1・WBO#1、WBA Supermiddle#7
Unanimous Desision（100-90、100-90、100-89）

　Shields, who is currently honored as the No. 1 female pound-for-pound fighter and calls herself the "GWOAT" (Greatest Woman of All Time), lived up to her name with a superb boxing performance, winning a convincing decision over the strongest challenger.

　The originally scheduled opponent, Hannah Gabriel (Costa Rica), was suspended due to a positive VADA test (drug test) imposed by the WBC. The Mexican-American Cornejo, who was substituted for Gabriel, was a top-ranked challenger fighting at the super middleweight division, one weight class higher, and was a size larger than Shields.

　However, Shields, who hails from the same state as the venue, Michigan (Flint, about 60miles from Detroit), was cheered on by her hometown crowd and came at Cornejo fiercely from the first round, returning with a powerful right hand as Cornejo greeted her with a right hand. She quickly took control, adding a sharp left hook, three jabs, and an overhand right as well.

　In the second round, Shields switched to a lower-center-of-gravity stance and hit a right cross with a quick in-and-out that she also used as a feint. She ducked a series of Cornejo's strikes with a small head move and hit Cornejo in the nose with a right to left followed by a follow-up right. Cornejo's nose must have been hurt by this, and she repeatedly made gestures of worrying about her nose afterward.

　A powerful right swing caught her attention, but a straight right hand that kept her aware of this slipped inside her guard. She also landed a brilliant left jab that built rhythm and spacing. With this much pressure, an ordinary challenger would have been completely out of her depth.

　However, despite being overwhelmingly outpointed, Cornejo's high level of technical skill prevented her from taking the final move. Instead of dropping back under pressure, she was using her small steps to move back and forth, back and forth, and left to right, aiming for a right counter. Shields knew this, of course, and dared to challenge her to a right hand phase, or even to stop and invite a right hand, where she tried to land a short right and then a short left hook. But Cornejo also dodged with a small step back. It was a step work that Ismael Salas of her coach that she had learned.

　Throughout the fight, Shields was always rushing, repeatedly knocking Cornejo back with hard right hand strikes. The right hand that Shields landed in the seventh round was particularly powerful, coming in two tempos late, and it could have spooked her with a single blow. Cornejo, however, did not stop moving and responded well to Shields' subsequent agitation.

　Although she ate one shot, Cornejo never got hit repeatedly. Moreover, she did not escape into the clinch, but combined blocking, guarding, bodywork, footwork, and skillful defensive techniques.

　Sealds often started the pattern with an overhand right or a swing. Cornejo dodged these completely, sometimes by stepping back, while keeping her arms in guard first. A normal player would swing and lose her balance. Cornejo would have been aiming for that, but Shields never lost her balance and connected with another left, then a straight right, and then a secondary and tertiary attack. Cornejo was so busy dodging that she just couldn't move on to the return attack.

　In all aspects of the match, Shields outclassed her. However, Cornejo's mental strength based on her technique made this a match worthy of a four-team unification match.

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