Olympic trials to £6m deal – Shields’ full-circle momentImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Claressa Shields has three knockout wins from her 17 victoriesByBobbie JacksonBBC SportPublished31 minutes agoSix months before the 2012 Olympics, American Claressa Shields took her first step on the path to greatness.Aged only 16, Shields beat national champion Franchon Crews-Dezurn, who was eight years her senior, at the US Olympic trials.Shields would go on to win gold at the Games in London and earn a further two victories over Crews-Dezurn in the amateur ranks.A fourth successive win followed when they met on their professional debuts in 2016 – and the pair are set to reignite their rivalry on Saturday when Shields defends her undisputed heavyweight status.”Me and Franchon have always reported that for some reason we are always intertwined in each other’s lives,” Shields told BBC Sport. “If you take it back to when I was 16, she was ranked number one in the country and I was ranked number seven and the people who were ranked lower had to pull out a ball and it would tell you who we were fighting against – I pulled out number one.”Now we meet again on the first fight of my major deal.”The major multi-fight deal that Shields speaks of was signed with Wynn Records and Salita Promotions in November.
It is worth a staggering $8m (£6.1m) and also came with an additional $3m (£2.2m) signing-on bonus.
Those figures are unheard of in women’s boxing but Shields, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, five-weight world champion and three-weight undisputed champion, is no stranger to raising the bar.
“I have never heard of a man getting that kind of signing bonus. I’ve heard of men getting a $1m (£739,000) signing bonus but never $3m,” Shields reported.
“I would love to ask ChatGPT, ‘Has a man ever got a $3m signing bonus for a boxing contract?’
“My contract now is big overall and I’m getting back paid. When I came out of the Olympics with two gold medals, I should have got a $1m signing bonus for whoever I went with but that didn’t happen.
“Now it’s years later but I’m getting it all back. I’ve been able to make millions over the past few years.”
