DETROIT – The first time most of us remember Claressa Shields and Franchon Crews-Dezurn sharing the ring with each other was not actually the first time they fought.
Shields and Crews-Dezurn famously faced each other in what was the pro debut for both, back in November 2016 on the pay-per-view undercard of the first match between light heavyweights Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward. At the time, their bout was notable solely because Shields was turning pro after being the first American boxer to win gold medals in two different Olympics.
That four-rounder truly became famous given what both – not just Shields – have gone on to do.
Of course, Shields has furthered her case as the “GWOAT”, or “Greatest Woman of All Time”, earning world titles in five weight classes, including being a four-time undisputed champion in three divisions. Crews-Dezurn has herself been undisputed at super middleweight, and has since regained two world titles in the division.
That they are meeting again more than nine years later has led some to consider this rematch as Shields and Crews-Dezurn coming full circle. It’s not a circle so much as two lines that repeatedly intersect – and their pro debuts were not the beginning, but rather the midpoint.
Why the midpoint? Because the beginning goes back much further than 2016, when the 21-year-old Shields scored a four-round shutout over the 29-year-old Crews-Dezurn.
Rather, this story truly begins several years before then.
“When I first started boxing, the first girl I ever looked up in my phone, I was 13 years old, I looked up and I said, ‘Who is ranked No. 1 at 165lbs to go to the Olympics?’” Shields said at a press conference on Thursday, three days before their rematch. “And the woman’s name that popped up was Franchon Crews.”
(Shields’ timeline might be slightly off. The announcement came in August 2009, when Shields was 14, saying that women’s boxing would debut at the 2012 Olympics in London. Shields first entered the boxing gym at 11, so 14 could still be considered the start of her time in the sport.)
“She was my motivation back then,” Shields said. The teenager found footage on YouTube and observed that Crews-Dezurn hit hard. They first met in-person when Shields was 15 and competing at the Junior Olympics, which coincided with a men’s event that Crews-Dezurn was watching.
“I probably was more excited to meet her than she was to meet me, because I had been watching so much film of her, and she had fought out of the country,” Shields said. “She was ranked No. 1 in the country, No. 2 in the world. She was that girl. But when you want to be the girl, you have to take out the girl. So she’s always been somebody who I was like, ‘I'm going to have to fight her.’ When I ran, I thought about her. When I sparred the men, I thought about her. When I punched the bag, I thought about her. And it's been that way for a very long time.”
Recalled Crews-Dezurn: “I’m there watching the big boys, and this young girl comes – I saw her fight, I saw like a glimpse. She was like, ‘Hi, Ms. Crews.’ I was like, ‘Hi, how are you?’ I said something like, ‘You know who I am?’ She was like, ‘Yes, I know who you are, Ms. Crews,’ with so much confidence. And then I found out later, I was like, ‘Oh, this little bitch going to be a problem. But, yeah, when she stepped on the scene, she put a fire under me and all the other girls.”
Shields and Crews-Dezurn fought multiple times in the amateurs.
Shields triumphed over Crews-Dezurn in their opening bout at the Olympic trials in February 2012, winning comfortably on points. Both women went to the world championships in China that May. Shields suffered what remains the only loss of her entire life in boxing, dropping a decision to Savannah Marshall in the middleweight tournament. Crews-Dezurn earned silver in the light-heavyweight competition.
A couple of months after Shields’ won her first Olympic gold medal in 2012, she took on and defeated Crews-Dezurn again, this time in the finals of the Police Athletic League championships. And in early 2014, with the US national championship on the line, Shields came out on top one more time.
“It’s always been competitive,” Crews-Dezurn said.
They were rivals in the ring, sure, but also friendly outside of it (Though as the build-up to this fight has shown, that friendship can give way to heated interactions online and in-person).
“When she went to the world championships and came up short against Savannah, I was the first person she ran to, and she said, ‘What am I going to do?’” Crews-Dezurn recalled. “I said, ‘You're going to be patient, and everything will work out for you.’”
Crews-Dezurn says she had never planned to go pro, that qualifying for the Olympics was her ultimate goal. She came up short in the Olympic Trials again in October 2015, losing to Tika Hemingway, who then lost to Shields in the final.
Crews-Dezurn continued on in amateur competition, including returning to the world championships in 2016, which were held in Kazakhstan. She took home the bronze that May at light heavyweight. Shields was there, too, winning the top prize at middleweight. Three months later, Shields captured her second Olympic gold in August in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
As Shields prepared for her pro debut, her manager contacted Crews-Dezurn.
“I took that chance, which changed my life,” Crews-Dezurn said. Shields topped her in a four-round shutout that November. Weeks later, Crews-Dezurn’s mother died. “It’s like boxing became my mother. Boxing became my life even more so than before.”
Shields has gone on to great acclaim. Crews-Dezurn hasn’t reached the same heights, but she’s deservingly proud of her accomplishments, never mind that she has done far more than is seen from probably 99.99 per cent of the opponents that future stars debut against.
Shields won her first two world titles – the IBF and WBC super-middleweight belts – in 2017 in her fourth fight, and soon vacated them, moving down to 160lbs and beginning to campaign for what would be the first of her four undisputed championships.
Crews-Dezurn won her first world title in her fifth fight, defeating Maricela Cornejo by majority decision for the vacant WBC belt in September 2018. She added the vacant WBO title in a rematch with Cornejo in September 2019. She lost those two titles in January 2020 but was awarded them back when the woman who defeated her, Alejandra Jimenez, tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing drug.
Crews-Dezurn went on to take the IBF and WBA titles from Elin Cederroos via unanimous decision in April 2022, officially ascending the throne atop the division. Alas, her time as queen didn’t last long. Crews-Dezurn lost a majority decision to Savannah Marshall in her first defense, which didn’t take place until July 2023. Marshall was ultimately stripped of the WBA and WBC belts, which Crews-Dezurn has since regained following a unanimous win over Shadasia Green.
Meanwhile, Shields has long been in search of opponents, a difficult proposition given the lack of depth in the heavier weight classes of women’s boxing. It is why she went down in weight from super middleweight to middleweight and junior middleweight, then back up to 160 before her recent run at light heavyweight and heavyweight.
Once again, these two fighters’ paths are intersecting. Shields is 30 years old, while Crews-Dezurn is 38.
“I knew that this [rematch] would happen – I wish this fight would have happened when she was undisputed at 168 and I was undisputed at 160,” Shields said. “But this fight being at heavyweight brings more notoriety to her name, to my name, to the event. We will be etched in history together throughout our entire careers, from the amateurs to our pro debuts, to our heavyweight fight coming up February 22.”
“This is a long time in the making,” Crews-Dezurn said. “I’ve always told Claressa: Our journeys are going to be intertwined.”
David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.
