For the first time since 2018, Claressa Shields is heading back to Detroit to fight.
Shields will have the first defense of her undisputed middleweight title on June 3 at Little Caesars Arena against Hanna Gabriels, the same fighter she beat by unanimous decision in that fight in the Motor City. The fight will be broadcast on DAZN.
It will be the first time Shields will fight in the United States since 2021, when she became the undisputed junior middleweight champion defeating Marie-Eve Dicaire in Shields’ hometown of Flint, Michigan.
Gabriels is the only fighter to knock Shields down during her career — sending her to the canvas in the first round of a fight Shields eventually won by unanimous decision to win the WBA and IBF middleweight titles.
Gabriels (21-2-1, 12 KO), 40, won her next three fights after losing to Shields, but hasn’t fought since April 17, 2021.
Shields, 28, last fought in October as the headliner on a sold-out all-female card at the O2 Arena in London, where she beat Savannah Marshall by unanimous decision for the undisputed middleweight title. The win had avenged the only boxing loss for Shields (13-0, 2 KO) in her career as an amateur or professional.
She is one of the most accomplished fighters, male or female, in boxing history. Shields has held titles at junior middleweight, middleweight and super middleweight in her career. She has been the undisputed junior middleweight champion and twice the undisputed middleweight champion — including the title she currently possesses.
After fighting the first 11 fights of her career in the United States, Shields fought both of her 2022 bouts in England, beating Ema Kozin by unanimous decision in February and Marshall in October. The last time Shields fought as a boxer in the United States was 2021, when she became the undisputed junior middleweight champion by beating Dicaire, ESPN’s No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer. This will be Shields’ first fight in 2023 in either boxing or MMA, where she is 1-1 with the PFL. She last fought in the PFL in 2021, a split decision loss to Abigail Montes in Hollywood, Florida. It is the only loss she has as a professional in boxing or MMA.