Claressa Shields signs with the PFL

In January female boxing G.O.A.T. candidate Claressa Shields, 25, said she wants her MMA debut in 2020, and that she wants to box Amanda Nunes. In July, Shields favorably compared the treatment of women athletes in the two sports.

In MMA there’s just more exposure than woman’s boxing, said Shields. Over in the MMA I love how it’s equal. You have some fights where the men are the main event. And you have the same amount when the women are. Women are on pay-per-view, and in boxing it’s just not the same way.

Now Mike Bohn and John Morgan for MMAjunkie report that Shields has signed with the PFL. She will reportedly compete in both MMA and boxing in 2021. Further, Shields will not enter the PFL’s 2021 season, but rather will compete in single, non-tournament fights, in a similar fashion to how the promotion handled fellow two-time Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison, who is now the promotions women’s lightweight champion.

However, don’t expect to see Shields vs. Harrison.

Kayla is my sister, said Shields to BJPenn.com back in January. I’m sorry, I love Kayla to death. Me and her have talked before and we got interviewed about this together. I love Kayla and I was cheering for her die-hard the other night when she won the $1 million and became the PFL champion at 155. That’s not somebody who I see myself fighting because it would be hard to get up for that fight. Girls who I fight, you kind of got something against them but Kayla is a good friend since we were 11, been to multiple Olympics together, and we’ve always been super supportive of each other. It would be hard to make a fight between us. I just don’t see myself fighting her and that’s not out of fear, that’s out of love. She’s like a friend forever.

“T Rex” was 77-1 as an amateur, and is 10-0 since turning pro four years ago. She won Olympic gold at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, and is the first American woman to win Olympic gold in boxing, and the first American, male or female to win consecutive Olympic medals. Shields is one of just eight boxers in history, female or male, to simultaneously hold all four major world titles in boxing (WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO). The others are Cecilia Brækhus, Terence Crawfordm, Bernard Hopkins, Jessica McCaskill, Jermain Taylor, Katie Taylor, Oleksandr Usyk. With a pedigree like that, she could be the next Henry Cejudo. Or she could be the next James Toney. We’ll find out next year.

https://twitter.com/Claressashields/status/1333560240378408960