Claressa Shields (born March 17, 1995) is an American professional boxer who has held the unified WBC and IBF female super middleweight titles since August 2017.
As an amateur she won a gold medal in the women’s middleweight division at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, making her the first American boxer—female or male—to win consecutive Olympic medals. Shields was the youngest boxer at the February 2012 U.S. Olympic trials, winning the event in the 165 lb (75 kg) middleweight division. In May, she qualified for the 2012 Olympics, the first year in which women’s boxing was an Olympic event, and went to become the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing.
On August 4, 2017, Shields defeated defending champ Nikki Adler in Detroit for the WBC super-middleweight belt and the vacant IBF super-middleweight belt. The fight was on Showtime.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Claressa Shields at the Shadow League Sports Trailblazers 4th Annual Shadow League Awards 2017- NYC ,where she was an honoree, see more about Claressa in our World Liberty TV.African-American Channel by Clicking here.
Boxing promoter, Don King quickly hit pay dirt by convincing Muhammad Ali to fight in an exhibition for an African-American hospital in 1972. From there, he talked his way into the inner circles of top heavyweights Joe Frazier and George Foreman, who were set for a title bout in January 1973. King notoriously arrived at the fight with Frazier’s entourage, but switched allegiances after Foreman scored the decisive knockout.
King firmly established himself in the sport with the 1974 title bout between Ali and Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. Although he possessed little formal experience as a promoter, King convinced Zaire dictator Mobutu Sésé Seko to provide the financial backing for the $5 million he promised each fighter, and organized an accompanying music festival that included James Brown and B.B. King. Despite delays and numerous attempts to move the fight back to the United States, the “Rumble in the Jungle” took place in late October and entered the annals of boxing lore with Ali’s win.
Inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1997, Don King remained one of the sport’s major players well into the following decade. In 2006, Forbes estimated he had promoted some 600 championship bouts and generated a net worth of $350 million over his career.
However, the dilution of boxing talent through numerous sanctioning bodies and the rise of mixed-martial arts as a mainstream sport combined to erode King’s power. He was forced to cut staff members at Don King Productions, and in 2011 he sold his massive estate in Manalapan, Florida. Additionally, he endured the loss of his longtime wife, Henrietta, around this time.
King remained active professionally, though he usually drew far more attention than the little-known fighters he was promoting. He occasionally surfaced in the news for other reasons, such as when he was rumored to be a speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
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