Shields makes history with unanimous decision win over Dicaire

[March 06, 2021]    (Reuters) - American boxer Claressa Shields scored a unanimous points victory over Canada's Marie-Eve Dicaire on Friday to become the first undisputed world champion in two different divisions in the four-belt era.

Women's Middle (75kg) Final Bout 270 - Riocentro - Pavilion 6 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - 21/08/2016. Claressa Shields (USA) of USA arrives for her bout. REUTERS/Peter Cziborra

Shields, 25, retained her WBC and WBO light-middleweight titles, won the vacant WBA belt and also took Dicaire's IBF crown after all three judges at the Dort Federal Event Centre in Flint, Michigan, scored the fight 100-90 in the American's favour.

"I was trying for the knockout," said Shield, who landed 116 punches to Dicaire's 31. "That's what I wanted. And I almost had it…at the end of the day, I'm the new undisputed champion at 154 pounds – the first boxer to do it in history."

Shields, a two-time Olympic champion, had previously unified all four major belts - WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO - at middleweight.

After the fight, she was quick to call out Britain's Savannah Marshall, the only fighter to have defeated Shields as an amateur.

"You won a lucky decision when we were kids," Shields said.

(Reporting by Arvind Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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