How MMA helped Claressa Shields' clinch work in boxing: 'I'm a lot stronger than what I was'

Claressa Shields says MMA has helped improve her boxing.

Shields, a multiple world champion in three weight classes in boxing, has competed twice in MMA. She stopped Brittney Elkin in her pro debut, but lost a split decision to Abigail Montes in October 2021. Both fights came under the PFL banner.

Having to add wrestling and grappling to her training for MMA, Shields says she picked up on a lot of stuff that she plans to show off in boxing. She faces Savannah Marshall on Sept. 10.

“I’m a lot stronger than what I was – and definitely inside the clinch,” Shields recently told MMA Junkie. “I used to hate it when girls used to hold me in boxing because it would be like, ‘How the hell do you get loose from here?’ But now I know so many moves on the inside. You’ll probably see me doing some MMA stuff in here, moving the girl’s arm and hit her in the stomach because it’s like you’re doing all this stuff to not get loose, but to open up for shots.”

Shields pointed to heavyweight world champion boxer Tyson Fury as an example. Fury got some MMA training with former UFC title challenger Darren Till on multiple occasions.

“You can ask Tyson Fury – he does the same thing,” Shields said. “He did a lot of clinch work. He’s done some MMA training even before people knew about it. So if you even watch him inside the clinch, you will see him doing a whole bunch of stuff, and I didn’t know that those things were possible until I started doing MMA.”