Boxxer has scheduled a Tuesday news conference in London to formally announce the long-awaited showdown between rivals Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall for the undisputed women’s middleweight title.
But the news conference alert also added “further major announcements will be made at the press conference revealing details of an historic undercard.”
That will be the addition of a three-belt women’s junior lightweight title unification fight between Mikaela Mayer, who holds the WBO and IBF 130-pound belts and The Ring title — and WBC titleholder Alycia Baumgardner, multiple sources with knowledge of the plans told Fight Freaks Unite.
Top Rank, Mayer’s promoter, had already announced that Mayer-Baumgardner was made but did not announce a date or a site, only that it would take place on an ESPN platform in the late summer or early fall.
But a deal has been struck to add Mayer-Baumgardner as the co-feature of the Shields-Marshall fight. The event is scheduled to take place Sept. 10 at The O2 in London, multiple sources previously told Fight Freaks Unite.
The date and site will be made official at the news conference. The card will stream live on ESPN+ in the United States and air on Sky Sports in the United Kingdom.
Shields (12-0, 2 KOs), 27, of Flint, Michigan, has been the undisputed middleweight champion before, but when she moved down to junior middleweight, where she also became the undisputed champion in March 2021, she vacated the WBO middleweight title.
Marshall (12-0, 10 KOs), 31, of England, went on to win the vacant WBO belt in October 2020 and Shields is aiming to become the two-time undisputed champion against her amateur nemesis in a fight that has been anticipated for years. Shields was 77-1 as an amateur and won two Olympic gold medals. Her lone loss was to Marshall in 2012.
Shields is headed back to fight in the U.K. for the second fight in a row as part of her deal with Boxxer, which also promotes Marshall. Shields shut out Emma Kozin to retain her WBC/IBF/WBA belts on Feb. 5 in Cardiff, Wales. Marshall knocked out Femke Hermans in the third round to retain her belt on April 2 in Newcastle, England.
Shields-Marshall was initially planned for June 25 and then in July but it was pushed back to the fall for various reasons.
Mayer (17-0, 5 KOs), 31, Shields’s 2016 U.S. Olympic teammate from Los Angeles, unified 130-pound belts and claimed the vacant Ring title in November via decision over Maiva Hamadouche in the consensus 2021 women’s fight of the year. On April 9, Mayer routed Jessica Han in a title defense.
Baumgardner (12-1, 7 KOs), 28, of Bingham Farms, Michigan, knocked out Terri Harper in the fourth round of to win the WBC belt a week after Mayer-Hamadouche and then made her first defense by shutout decision over Edith Soledad Matthysse on April 16.
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