“I didn’t know I had a lane in boxing. I looked up to the males. It made me more comfortable knowing that there was a Laila Ali and that there was an Anne Wolfe. said Claressa Shields. “To see a woman boxing actually gave me more encouragement to fulfill my dreams. I wanted to have achievements and commercials and magazine covers — just like Serena Williams, but just in boxing.” (Sean Jorgensen/Salita Promotions)
Claressa Shields has spent years turning calamity into relative serenity.
Raised in an impoverished section of Flint, Michigan, where there has been a years-long water crisis, Shields witness her mother struggle with alcohol abuse. Her father was imprisoned until she was nine, two years later introducing her to pugilism.
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