Three-division titleholder Claressa Shields returns to the boxing ring against Marie-Eve Dicaire in an all-woman pay-per-view show Friday night in Shields’ hometown of Flint, Mich.
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CLARESSA SHIELDS (10-0, 2 KOs) VS.
MARIE-EVE DICAIRE (17-0, 0 KOs)
Date: Friday, March 5
Time: 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT (main event later in show)
Where: Dort Financial Center, Flint, Mich.
TV / Stream: Pay-per-view via cable and satellite TV providers and
FITE TV streaming.
Cost: $29.99
Division: Junior middleweight (154 pounds)
At stake: Shields’ WBC and WBO, Dicaire’s IBF and vacant WBA titles
Pound-for-pound ranking: None
Odds: NA
Also on the card: Raquel Miller vs. TBA, 10 rounds, junior middlweights; Danielle Perkins vs. Monika Harrison, six rounds, heavyweights; Nadia Meknouzi vs. Samantha Pill, eight rounds, light heavyweights
Prediction: Shields UD
Background: Shields and Dicaire are the first women to headline a pay-per-view card since Laila Ali outointed Jacqui Frazier in 2001. The fight was originally set for May but was postponed multiple times, which accounts for Shields’ long layoff. She last fought in January of last year, when she defeated Ivan Habazin by a near-shutout decision to capture two vacant junior middleweight titles. DiCaire, who has been out of the ring since November 2019, will be making the fourth defense of her title. Shields is thrilled to be in the featured fight of a pay-per-view event. She told ESPN: “I’m super excited to be having my first pay-per-view card and I’m hoping that everybody who has been waiting on me to fight, everybody that supports me, that they all get behind me and get behind the women athlete movement and just join us because not only are we yelling equal pay, equal opportunity, equal TV time, we’re also working just as hard. We’re equally working.” Shields has begun training for her MMA debut.
