Claressa Shields is a middleweight champion again after stopping Kaye Scott in the sixth round Saturday night at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
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The finish came at 1:38 of round six. Shields landed three clean left hooks back to back, each one landing harder than the one before it, until Scott could not hold her balance and went down. Scott got up and beat the count, but one more flurry was enough for her corner to throw in multiple towels and end it.The win gives Shields the WBA and WBC middleweight belts and moves her to 19 and 0 with four knockouts. It was her first stoppage since she finished Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse at heavyweight in 2024. She landed 92 of 208 punches. Scott landed 60 of 103.
The weight cut is the part that deserves attention. Shields said she came down from 198 pounds to 160 in 14 weeks. She fought at heavyweight in February, beating Franchon Crews-Dezurn in a rematch, and turned around to make middleweight by August. She had not fought at 160 since 2023, when she beat Maricela Cornejo on points.
An estimated 15,000 people were in the building. Todd Grisham, calling the fight, said Scott brought a knife to a gunfight and got blown away.
Shields now has belts at 154, 160, 168, 175, and heavyweight. What comes next is the interesting part. She has been in talks with Lauren Price, the unified welterweight champion, for a fight that would put two Olympic gold medalists in the ring together. Mikaela Mayer is another option, and she defends her unified super welterweight belts against Chantelle Cameron later this month. Shields has also said she is open to fighting Tamm Thibeault of Canada, who holds the WBO and IBF middleweight titles, which would give Shields the chance to become undisputed at middleweight for a third time.
All of this happened on a day when her personal life was already running its own news cycle. Papoose posted video of himself getting her name tattooed on him hours before the fight, his first public move since Remy Ma released “Wanna Go.
