For Claressa Shields, the Best Revenge is Her Paper

are asking this week, how old is too old to keep playing?

ANDREAS HALE: People will call it a circus show, call it what you want, but we’re all gonna tune in.

DG: Andreas Hale is a reporter for ESPN. Andreas, they, I think they call you the Swiss army knife of sports journalism. Is that right?

AH: Yeah, I’ve had that term mentioned to me quite a few times because I’ve covered everything from boxing and MMA and pro wrestling. And then the music world, I covered music, entertainment, film. So I do a little bit of everything in this wonderful world of journalism, but combat sports is my thing right now.

DG: Combat sports is your thing. So it’s not just, it’s not just Swiss army knife of sports journalism. It’s Swiss army, knife of journalism. I mean, you’re like music, your entertainment, you do it all. Do you cover aging? Because that’s the topic that we’re going to get into a little bit today. (Laughs)

AH: I mean, listen, it’s a world in sports and entertainment because, you know, I covered music for so long. It’s like, how old is too old to rap and how old it’s too old and to dance and how old is to old to fight? So aging is always a part of the conversation, especially as you get older and you start to watch your peers get older. It’s, like, wow, why are you still doing this? But then at the same time, you also wonder, man, it is not as old as I thought it was when I get to be a certain age. So I’ve covered it. I’ve had conversations about it. Aging in sports is always part of the conversation.

DG: It’s so crazy too, like I’m 49 years old and I think about like, oh, this quarterback or this major league baseball pitcher is they’re talking about him getting old. And I mean, we’re talking about people who are just like turning 40 and I’m like, Oh, this is terrible.

AH: It’s crazy. I think the LeBron James conversations kind of turned a lot of people in like, well, how old is too old? But there have been athletes like Bernard Hopkins in boxing who have boxed well deep into their 40s. So it’s not necessarily a new subject. It’s just which high level athletes continue to compete at a high level once they cross the age of 40? And it’s a complicated one. We talk about Aaron Rodgers and it looks like Aaron Rodger is washed up. My man’s only like 42 years old but Tom Brady was doing it at a high level up until his retirement. I guess it’s just who you are and how you’re genetically built.

DG: Yeah, well, I, as a Steeler’s fan, I hope that Aaron Rogers is genetically built like Tom Brady and actually gets better with age. Like maybe his best season ever is still ahead of him. I’m a little skeptical, but you never know. I mean, he does like the Ayahuasca stuff. I’m actually hoping he goes on some kind of one of his journeys and it gives him one more year of longevity.

AH: My goodness, I feel for you as a Steelers fan. I’m a 49ers fan, so I’m dealing with Brock Purdy. We got the Fountain of Youth. Christian McCaffrey’s an old 30, so we deal with that guy. But yeah, good luck to you. And Aaron Rodgers, good luck.

DG: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Well, I mean you cover combat sports and one of the stories of aging a couple stories of like aging in sports are in that world right now. You’ve got Floyd Mayweather,who seems to be unretiring himself. He’s 49 years old. For our listeners who don’t know a ton about him, just give us the kind of thumbnail storyline of of who he is and what he’s meant to boxing

AH: The self-proclaimed greatest boxer of all time, 50 and 0, undefeated record.

DG: Amazing.

AH: The cash cow of boxing, the cash kingpin of boxing. The one who took it mainstream. And strangely enough, he did all these things because he was a character, not because he was knocking people out. People just love to hate Money Mayweather. And I think anybody listening to this show has heard the name Floyd Mayweathers once or twice at least. Not as big as Mike Tyson in the pop-cultural sense, but pretty damn close. And at damn near 50 years old, he’s getting ready to come back and fight Mandy Pacquiao again 10 years after their first fight in 2016, which broke all the records, Pay Per View records, GATE records, viewership records, revenue records, broke everything. Yeah, they’re doing it again. And people have asked why, I know why, and we can get to that, but Floyd, he’s a genetic freak. Even though he’s 49 years old he trains like he’s 22 years old. I’ve been in the gym with him many times over the years. There’s no fighter who trains like him. There’s just not, I wouldn’t even say no fighter. There’s not athlete that trains like Floyd Mayweather. These are marathon sessions that he has. So he’s in wonderful shape, but the good question is, well damn, you’ve been retired for seven years, why are you coming back?

DG: Yeah, why? What’s the answer?

AH: Money. Money, money, money. It’s always about money, right? And I’m not gonna sit here and say, because there’s been a lot of reports to say that Floyd is in, he’s broke. That’s what people say, he is broke. I’d like to be his level of broke.

DG: (Laughs) He’s made like hundreds of millions of dollars of in purses over the years, right?

AH: Yes, a billion dollars in purses. I think his broke and our broke are two different kind of brokes and I think

DG: I have a feeling.

AH: Yeah, and I think, you know, I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that the idea of bankruptcy is not because you’re broke, it means that you don’t want to pay your bills. I’m not saying that Floyd has filed bankruptcy anywhere, but he has quite a few lawsuits out there, and his easiest way to make money is to box. And in this day and age with Netflix getting into the game and seeing what Jake Paul has done in the industry, the idea that he can fight and probably make another 80, 90, 100 million dollars for 36 minutes of work, yeah, I mean, I’d probably fight too at 49 years old.

DG: So I sit here thinking like maybe there, there are other relatable human things going on. Like I think about my own career, like am I going to hold on to journalism as long as I possibly can because it’s the only thing I feel like I know how to do well. I don’t know what my identity would be without it going into something completely new is crazy. Is there any of that at all or truly this is about dollars you think for him?

AH: I truly do think it’s about dollars. They call him Money Mayweather, right? It’s the one thing that he knows he’s good at, which is boxing. It may not be real estate or it may not his TBE credit card that he just put out there, or it might not be his vitamins or anything else, but the one that he can make money off of is boxing, since he’s retired, he’s done quite a few exhibition fights, right. He’s made a lot of money fighting John Gotti III, like who the hell fights John Gotti III and makes a lot of money. Well Floyd Mayweather does. He fought Logan Paul, who Logan says he still owes him $1.5 million, but that’s neither here nor there. But he’s still competing. But I think the idea of Manny Pacquiao, somebody who’s not too young, right? I think this is the key here. He’s fighting within his age bracket. That is the most important thing here. It’s not like Floyd is fighting a Devin Haney or a Ryan Garcia or a Tank Davis. These guys are in their mid to 25 to 30 years old. He’s fighting somebody he’s already beat that he made a ton of money with that is still a cultural icon in the Philippines, in Manny Pacquiao, and the risk, the reward far outweighs the risk. It’s not like he’s going to get killed by Manny Pacquiao. In boxing and fighting in general is one of the sports where a bad fight is actually a good fight. And I’m not saying these two would have a bad fighting, but think about it. When you, we’re mostly entertained by bad fights. We’re mostly entertain by people that don’t have any defense or get punched in the face repeatedly. We’re not really entertained by highly skilled boxing, boxers, because that’s what we call boring. When they have really good defense and they’re blocking, it’s like, I don’t wanna see that. I wanna see a bad fight, that’s how you make money. But again, the idea of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao can do this now and people will say, who asked for it? I guarantee you’re going to watch it on September 19th, 2026 at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Like there is a lot of money to be made off of this. People will call it a circus show, call it what you want, but we’re all gonna tune in. But The bottom line is the man’s about to make a lot of money, again.

DG: Aren’t there rumors of him doing some sort of exhibition thing with Mike Tyson even before then? I mean, and Tyson is like 10 years his senior. I mean isn’t Tyson like 60?

AH: It’s money, man. There is, there have been reports, and I’ve been able to confirm that they do have a spring 2026 date for Floyd Mayweather to fight Mike Tyson. Reportedly this in the Democratic of Congo. They’ve given a date, but I’ve talked to like Mike Tyson’s agents, not been confirmed. But yeah, yeah, it’s a circus, man, like people like to see fights. It’s the one thing, I say this all the time, like if me and who are out on the street. And we look on one corner and there’s some kids playing soccer and we’re looking at a corner and these kids playing football and we looking at another corner and playing baseball and then two people are fighting, we’re gonna go watch the fight. It doesn’t even matter who’s fighting. We’re gonna watch the fighting. It’s a carnal desire to watch people get punched in the face. I enjoy talking about it, but we all like to watch it. So yeah, Floyd and Mike Tyson, as ludicrous as it sounds and as ridiculous as it is, we’re going to watch because we want to see if Mike Tyson can punch Floyd Mayweather in the face. So yeah that’s gonna happen.

DG: Well, didn’t, um, I mean, Tyson a little more than a year ago did this Netflix thing against Jake Paul, right? And I watched it. I feel like a lot of the world watched it, despite the fact that Netflix was having glitches and couldn’t figure out how to stream something live, which was a problem. But like, wasn’t that boring?

AH: It was, but you know how many people watched it? 109 million people live stream that fight because of the curiosity of it all, right? Like the idea that Mike Tyson was fighting, most of us who grew up on Mike Tyson, me and you were close to the same age, we grew up Mike Tyson. So we was like, hey, we wanna go see him beat this YouTuber up. That’s what we wanted to see. The reality was is that Jake Paul is actually a decent fighter and he knew how to neutralize an old ass Mike Tyson so it doesn’t matter what happens during the fight. It’s like, how do we get people in the door?

DG: Well, I want to talk about one other boxer. She’s maybe the most successful women’s boxer that the United States, the world has ever seen. (Laughs) It’s Claressa Shields. You know, from Michigan, had an amazing conversation with her that we’re going to hear in just a few minutes, but she’s been talking a lot about how long she wants to box already thinking about when she wants to retire. She’s going to be facing some of these same questions, but she is undefeated just like Mayweather. You know, for people who don’t know Claressa, we’re obviously going to hear from her in a minute, but like what make, what makes her special?

AH: Two-time Olympic gold medalist, right? She is the self-proclaimed GWOAT, and she’s, the greatest woman of all time. She’s an undefeated fighter. She is the first boxer, male or female, to be undisputed in three different weight classes, which means get all four belts and carry them at the same time. She did it before Terence Crawford. She’s done it before other fighters. She is special. There are people that don’t like her, but we tend to not like people that are too good at things and we can’t comprehend why. There was a time when I was growing up that I disliked Michael Jordan. I was tired of him beating up on everybody. I think Claressa Shields is kind of the same way. She’s so good that she’s so far ahead of the field that people tend to not like her and want to see her lose. And it, you know, it also helps or doesn’t help that she has a, she knows how good she is. She speaks with an arrogance of herself, but it’s not, to me, it’s a negative thing. It’s an entertaining thing. I think Claressa is one of the most unique personalities in the sport. She’s helped take women’s boxing to another level where people are interested in seeing her fight, but I think she’s the greatest women’s boxer of all time. And I think people forget the woman just turned 30\. Like she is, she’s still young. Like Katie Taylor, who’s one of the other great female fighters from Ireland, she is 39 and talking about this is her last fight. Claressa, if she wanted to, she could fight for another eight, nine years if she wanted to, but she’s already accomplished more in this short amount of time than most men, women, or just athletes in general would do in their entire careers. Two time Olympic gold medalist turned pro, became a world champion relatively quickly, has won at every weight class that she’s been in, currently the undisputed heavyweight champion. It doesn’t get much better than her. She is by far one of the most accomplished athletes in the world.

DG: You know, and I think about coming full circle to us talking about money and, you know, sort of half joking about Floyd, talking about he’s, he’s broke, he’s not broke and the role that money plays. There’s something about Claressa and, you know, I know, you know, some people think that she’s arrogant. She talks a lot about, you know, the money that she has been able to make in boxing and I just find myself rooting for her because of what she had to overcome. You know, in women’s boxing. what she was doing even before women’s boxing was a thing to, to get respect for the sport, for herself, to get the respect that, that other athletes were getting when it comes to money and attention that she wasn’t getting, it’s really an extraordinary journey.

AH: It is. I mean, coming from Flint, Michigan, right? Just that part in general. It’s not easy to come out of Flint, Michigan which still has a water problem to this day. But for everything that Claressa has overcome to become a two-time Olympic gold medalist, to become a world champion, to be able to carry herself in the way that she has, she’s not supposed to make it. I know we hear these stories a lot of the time. They get very cliché. Oh, he came from nothing and became a world champ. It happens a lot. But Claressa’s different. Like she represented this country in the Olympics twice. And became a gold medalist. She turned pro and dominated the competition. She sells out Little Ceaser’s Arena in Detroit every time she fights. There’s really no reason for her to leave unless there’s some money elsewhere, but to sell out that place, like, she represents Michigan. She puts that state on her back, and then she shines every time that she fights, and again, some people don’t like her, but it’s real easy to hate greatness sometimes because you just want somebody to fall down because you’re not as good as them in your head. So you look at Claressa, she’s a great story, she’s great personality. I wish her nothing but the best and I hope she continues to do what she’s doing because she shines a spotlight on women’s boxing in a way that no other woman has.

DG: Yeah, I totally agree and we’re going to hear a lot from Clarissa coming up next in our conversation with her. Andreas Hale covers combat sports for ESPN. Always great hanging out with you. I really appreciate it.

AH: No, no problem at any time. I will be back.

DG: You are the best. And coming up next is our conversation with Clarissa Shields.

Welcome back to Sports in America. I’m David Greene. Just so you know, in this episode, we’re gonna touch on some sensitive topics, and that includes sexual abuse and child abuse. So please listen with care.

[MUSIC]

BROADCASTER: Hello and a very warm welcome to the Excel Arena in London’s Docklands where we have a sold out crowd in attendance once again.

DG: It is the 2012 Olympics. Thousands of fans are gathered at the Excel Exhibition Center in London to watch the women’s middleweight final. This is the first time that women’s boxing is at the Olympics and Team USA has just barely gotten a bronze medal. On the men’s side, none of them even made it onto the podium. This is last competition, the only remaining chance for gold. And all eyes are on a young fighter from the United States, Claressa Shields.

BROADCASTER: Is a 17-year-old from Flint in Michigan, representing…

DG: To a lot of fans, Claressa seemed to come out of nowhere, but she immediately started dominating in the ring. During the games, she’s competing against women with years of experience under their belt and beating them. She has this aggressive style where her high volume punching and agility make her a really difficult opponent.

BROADCASTER: Well, we’ve heard a huge amount, Ron, about Claressa Shields in the lead-up to this Olympics. She’s a little superstar in the USA.

DG: So the media frenzy surrounding her is totally insane. Everyone wants to know more about Claressa and she’s pretty open except when it becomes personal.

CLARESSA SHIELDS: I was getting interviewed all the time and they were asking me questions about my upbringing and my parents and my home life and I just didn’t want to talk about it.

DG: Talking about her background meant facing it, knowing that she’d have to do the work to overcome it. But in the back of her mind, Claressa knows that for her to be successful, she’ll have to free herself from exactly what’s holding her back in the first place.

CS: You know, I was fighting for something bigger than just myself, so I just wanted to go out there and just show them that listen. We can’t let our abusers win. We have to still go out and shake the world up.

DG: A lot of elite athletes have this crazy determination and laser focus that make them fun to watch, but Claressa Shields goes beyond most.

CLARESSA SHIELDS IN INTERVIEW: People always say, Claressa, you’re the self-proclaimed GWOAT. No, I’m not. I can beat any female boxer you put in front of me.

DG: She’s a two-time Olympic gold medalist and is the only boxer, male or female, to hold undisputed titles in three separate divisions. Oh, and in her professional career, Claressa is undefeated. She has a record of 18-0\. But before her rise to the top, Claressa went through the unimaginable.

CS: You have to go through things, you have to go through adversity to see what you’re really about. And nobody wants a story where you win the whole time.

DG: She grew up in Flint, Michigan in poverty. Most nights, she didn’t have enough food to eat or a proper bed, sometimes sleeping on the floor. Her father was incarcerated by the time she was two and her mother dealt with alcoholism. So, Claressa took it upon herself to take care of her siblings. As a result, when Claressa was 11 years old, she looked for some way to release the anger that she was feeling.

What is your earliest earliest memory of even thinking about boxing being your thing?

[MUSIC]

CS: Um, I remember walking into the gym and I seen two guys in the ring sparring. And I said to the coach, “I can do that.” And he said, “That’s the hardest thing to do on a gym.” I said, “No, doing push-ups and crunches is hard.” I said “That there with the gloves and that head thingy on,” I said, “I can do that,” and he laughed.

DG: And what were people telling you? Friends, your parents, about…

CS: Oh man listen. Boxing was not a big thing in Flint, Michigan. Like, it was a big thing for men, but not for women. So I got called crazy all the time. I got called delusional. You know, my mom got judged for it. People said to my mom, why you letting that girl box for? She going to get hurt. She’s a girl. She’s fragile. And my mom was like, if that’s what she want to do, that’s was she want do. My mom was very like non-strict on me, which made me, you know comfortable like I think my mom didn’t have to be strict on me. All I did was go to school and go to the gym. So

DG: And was that because you were finding that strength and confidence that you wanted so much to feel like you were empowered?

CS: Honestly, I just- I just loved competing.

DG: And you just loved too, yeah. (Laughs)

CS: Yeah, I love to compete, whether it’s running, softball, you know, basketball. I’m just a natural competitor and I love learning. And I almost did wrestling. I think I went to two wrestling practices and I think after the guys, you know it was too much grabbing and I was like, yeah, this sucks. I’d rather punch people in the face. So I just love, always love to compete and love to just learn.

DG: Claressa got her passion for boxing from her dad, Clarence. An amateur boxer himself, he was known to be a fearsome fighter who competed in underground leagues. But his dreams of a title never materialized after he got out of jail, so Claressa decided to take those dreams on as her own.

I’ve read that your dad was sending you some mixed messages about whether he thought boxing was a good idea, like that it was his idea, but then maybe he thought it wasn’t a good idea, like what were those conversations with your dad like?

CS: I kind of stumbled into the gym. And then after I trained for about a week, I asked my dad to sign me up because the coach wanted me to have an adult sign me up. Me asking my dad, he was 100% not for me boxing. He’s always told me that I was too pretty to be a boxer. And he didn’t want me doing it. And that boxing was for boys. My dad told me that the first time I ever mentioned boxing to him, I think he pondered on it for two or three days. Then we had like a little intervention with him, his wife, her kids, and my siblings, and everybody kind of voted on if they would, if they wanted me to box or not, and everybody else voted.

DG: It was like a democracy, this was like a vote to decide whether you could do it or not. Wow, okay.

CS: Yeah, so my dad was like, “If everybody vote that you can box, then you’ll box, but if you get out voted that you can’t, then, you can’t.” So of course he said everybody who don’t want her to box, raise your hand, and he raised his hand. And then he said, everybody who do want to box, raise their hand, and everybody else raise their hands. So that was really my first unanimous decision win ever, was getting my dad to let me go to the gym. (Laughs)

DG: (Laughs) And you’ve had a lot more since then. I mean, were you really gonna not box if you had been voted down?

CS: No. I was still going to sneak to the gym, but.

DG: I can imagine.

CS: But my dad, he always said, he signed me up, even though everybody voted yes, he was like, “I thought you would get beat up within a year and that you would quit.” That’s what my dad told me. Cause I was like a cry baby. I was very like sensitive and a cry baby all the time. So, my dad didn’t really know that I was a fighter. Before I started boxing, I was kind of fighting already, but I wasn’t boxing. Like I knew how to hold my own, you know, and I was very strong and athletic, but. I didn’t know how to box until I started boxing.

DG: Claressa got into boxing as an escape, but it also gave her a serious confidence boost. It was a way for her to push through some of the most difficult parts of her past.

As I understand it, you did face sexual abuse when you were really young, five years old?

CS: Five, yes.

DG: And I know you’ve been, you’ve been really become an advocate and outspoken about that to help other kids, but what do you want to tell us about what happened to you to, to help us understand it, understand how it shaped you and kind of open the door to help other people.

CS: I just try to keep it clean and say sexual abuse, but I was, you know, the R word. I was raped at the age of five years old. And, you know, it was hard for me to deal with for a very long time. It made me not trust people, not trust men. And me being a grown woman, I had to do a lot of soul searching, a lot therapy to make sure that I get past that. But…

[MUSIC]

CS: Boxing saved and changed my life. I can say that it helped me put that anger that I had from dealing with that, and also the fear I had from dealing with that, it helped me channel that to, channel that to my boxing career. You know, and any anger I had, any emotions I had about it, I kind of just put all of my energy into boxing, you know and that’s what makes me, that’s what makes me happy, that’s what made me be able to grow some confidence, to be able speak up for myself and made me feel strong. You know, not just physically, but mentally to be able to go through the gruesome trainings, you know running three miles and sparring against the guys all the time and push-ups and crunches and, you know, being a young girl and getting muscles and stuff like that. Like it made me feel really, really good. And you know I think what I want to say about what happened to me, as far as in, you now, my sexual abuses, I didn’t let my abuser win. And that’s something that I always tell everybody like, you know. A lot of women and girls go through sexual abuse and some of them make it like an excuse to where it’s like, Oh, somebody attacked you, somebody abused you. So you’re going to just kind of make that the reason that you don’t become nothing in life. You want to keep blaming a person who attacked you like, oh, this person is the reason I’m not nothing. This person the reason that I’m mad and I’m upset and you kind of feel like the world owe you something. And it’s, like, no, go out there and get everything that you deserve. And know that every time you win, every time you succeed, that your abuser knows that he didn’t break you. You know, he didn’t break you, he or she didn’t break you and that you turned out to be great. Because that’s what the abusers wanna do. They wanna break you mentally, you know, and make you not reach your full potential. And you can’t let them do that.

DG: Claressa’s powerful story inspired its own film called “The Fire Inside.” It spends a lot of time on her complicated relationship with her mother.

MARCELLA ADAMS FROM THE FIRE INSIDE: Oh, you too good for your mama now?

ALFRED FROM THE FIRE INSIDE: Come on, dance with me, Ressa. Looking fine here tonight.

MARCELLA: Leave her alone, Alfred. She too high and mighty for us.

ALFRED: Come on, just a little dance! (Punch)

MARCELLA: God damn it, Ressa!

DG: I do want to ask you about your mom too. I think watching the film, knowing, I think what I heard was that it was a friend of your mom’s who abused you when you were that young. And then seeing that party on screen at least with a guy at one of your moms parties, like trying to hug you and just the reaction you had and punching him, I just, I grabbed my wife’s hand because the pain of watching you go through that or even thinking about it, even though this was just on screen, was unimaginable. And I guess I just wonder like your relationship with your mom, you know, you talk about how great she was and encouraging you to box, how have you reflected on that relationship and the theme and concept of forgiveness?

CS: Well, I’m a bona fide Christian, you know, so I believe in Jesus Christ and in order to be forgiven by Jesus you got to forgive others. I think having a conversation with my mom at the age of 16, 17 is really what made me, you know, forgive her. And my mom is a great person. You know she’s very very nice. She’s a very funny. She was very sarcastic, my mom is completely who she is regardless of how you think about her and, you know, she’s always just been very like, very open and honest. And I think that we had our talk at the right time. And, you know, I’ve always loved my mom, but in my younger years, I feel like I didn’t like her, but I always loved her, you know. But as I got older and we talked, I can say I love my mom. She loves me. And it wasn’t her fault about anything that happened, you know to me, you know? And she’s one of my biggest advocates right now, you know, she comes to the UK whenever I fight, you know. She’s always there supporting me and letting everybody know, “Listen, my daughter, Muffin,” that’s my nickname, “My daughter Muffins can fight. My daughter, muffin is always going to represent for her family.” And she knows that family means everything to me. So me and my mom have a great relationship and like I said, you know….

[MUSIC]

CS: If I would have had a softer mom or a better mom, I don’t think I would be as great as I am. She wasn’t strict on me, so I was able to pick and do whatever the heck I wanted to do, and she was gonna fully support me. And I think that sometime, instead of parents telling kids what they should do, they should just kinda loosen up a little bit and let the kids pick what they wanna do. You know, if it’s something good, and then kinda just support them.

DG: It really hits me the way you said that. I mean, my mom passed away a long time ago, but I had a complicated relationship with her. I loved her more than anyone in the world, and when I was growing up, it was just the two of us. But you said if you had a mom who was softer and better, you wouldn’t be the person you are today.

CS: Yeah.

DG: What, that’s, say more about that. What do you mean?

CS: I feel like we get the parents that we need, not the parents that we want. You know, being in the sport of boxing, you got to be mentally and physically strong. And I think that me having a mom or even a dad who babied me, you know who just did everything perfect where I didn’t want for anything, where, I think a lot, a lot of my grit comes from not having, you know. When you have everything. When you have food and you have clothes and you have beds and you’re well taken care of, you don’t really have a worry in the world, which every kid and every family should strive to have that. But what I’m saying is when it like comes to boxers, I know for me, the struggle created the grit for me. You know what I am saying? Like me going without made me want to work harder, made me know, listen, nobody’s going to take care of you. You have to go out there and work and have to earn everything. You gotta work hard. You know, you have to fight for everything that you want. My mom is a lovely person, but has she been, you know, a mom that can, like I said, take care of me and, you know. Hair done. Oh, oh, if I fall, she come pick me up. And, you know, if I wanted to quit something, she let me quit or, you know, just being soft on me and taking it and just, she wasn’t able to do things, you know what I’m saying? But I’m sayin’ that, had she been the ideal mom, I wouldn’t be the strong champion that I am. So sometimes you have to go through things, you have go through adversity to see what you’re really about. And I’ve been through some of the most adversity and I have a hero story and that’s why they made a biopic about it, “The Fire Inside.”

[MUSIC]

CS: “The Fire Inside” would not have been a great movie had you not seen how much I went through as a child, how I had to go through being hungry and go through not having a bed and go though all the trauma and everything, the arguments, the anger. I don’t think that “The Fire Inside” would even be a fire without those things. And that’s the hero story. Nobody wants a story where you win the whole time. You know, I think in “The Fire Inside,” in my life, it was like, it was down, then it was up, then it was down. Then it was up.

DG: Sure was.

CS: Now we’re up, up and up now. But it was so many times in the movie where people, people and me know that I had plenty of reasons to give up and quit. But I didn’t, you know, and I think that’s the hero story that people applaud, you know, I didn’t become a statistic when I had every reason to become one.

DG: We’re going to have more with Claressa Shields coming up next on Sports in America.

This is Sports in America and let’s dive right back into our conversation with Claressa Shields.

Claressa held onto the weight of her abuse for years. The Olympics offered her a way to let go.

So this conversation with your mom was right before the Olympics in London. What did you say? And what did she say? How did that conversation go?

CS: I just remember me being kind of like, I was getting interviewed all the time and they were asking me questions about, you know, my upbringing and my parents and my home life and I just didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to just talk about everything that has something to do with boxing. Let’s talk about my record, my undefeated record, let’s talk more about how I’m number one in the country. Let’s about how i’m from Flint, how I train every day, how I spar against the boys. I want to talk about that. How I aspired to be an Olympic gold medalist, like let’s talk about that, but it seemed like they just kept, you know, kept just wanting to know, you know, how was your childhood, you know, and you know where are you from and tell us about your, you know, tell us about your upbringing. And I would just say look I had a very rough upbringing but, but we here now. And you know I guess after saying that answer a couple times and a few times people became very, very curious and I talked to my coach. Cause my boxing coach had knew about it already. And he just never said nothing to me about it. So then one day he just brought it up to me and I said, “I don’t want to talk about that.” And he was like, “Look, it’s okay to talk to about it” and I said, no, because I didn’t want to make my mom look bad because she’s not a bad person, you know? So I’m like, I don’t wanna, you, know, them people to blame her about what I went through.

DG: Sure.

CS: So I just didn’t want to talk about it, but, I just told her, mom. I’m getting ready to go to Olympics. They keep interviewing me. They keep asking me, but I didn’t want to talk to them first about it because me and my mom had never had a conversation about it. You know, stuff happens in our childhood and we don’t talk about it to our parents for a very, very long time. So from the age of five till 17, 16\. It would be arguments about it and maybe stuff would happen, but we never had a real heart-to-heart mother-daughter conversation about it. And I just asked her, I said, “Mom, what? Like, what happened?” You know, like, you know, “How didn’t you see that?” And you know her explanation was good enough for me. And, you know, she let me know that things that I had heard that was instilled in my head about, oh, she didn’t believe me and she chose him over me. Those things were lies, you know, but I guess in order for me to digest it at a young age, that’s what the adults around me was telling me. Like, oh this is why you have to stay with your grandma because your mama didn’t believe you and she chose him. So it kind of made me feel abandoned a little bit as like a kid. But talking to her, asking her why she chose him and why I had to move out and stuff, and hearing her explanation and knowing that she didn’t choose him and she loved me and stuff like that. That’s what brought the healing for me. And that’s how I was able to forgive her. And then I felt comfortable talking about it. But I didn’t wanna talk about it before I talked with my mom and heard her side of the story and got the real explanation from her. You know, how everything happened, and she didn’t know. You know, it wasn’t like she volunteered it. She didn’t know.

DG: She didn’t know about the abuse and you were holding on to what you had heard that she chose your abuser over you and you never talked us through.

CS: Of course my mom knew the reason I had to move with my grandma because she made that decision But it wasn’t because she chose him over me. That wasn’t the reason You know, I think abusers, especially when they’re in a relationship with a parent or whatever the case may be. You know, he was threatening me at a very young age threatening saying he was going to do he’s going to kill me. That somebody lied on him and all this and all these other stuff. That’s why my mom was protecting me, that’s why I’m moving my grandma for all those years.

DG: Claressa, how do you carry all that into London, into the Olympics?

CS: Well I got it off my chest by talking to my mom.

[MUSIC]

CS: You know and I just knew I was fighting for something bigger than just myself. I’m fighting for Flint, I’m fighting for my family, I’m fighting for you know girls who have been sexually abused. I fighting for a lot so I just wanted to go out there and just show them that listen we can’t let our, once again, we can let our abusers win. We have to still go out there and shake the world up. You know, we can still be confident, we don’t have to walk around like we did something wrong. You know, go out there and just win, you know, and that’s kind of been my attitude about it. But also too, like I said, you now, I have been praying to God for a long time, you know, because for a time I was scared of men. I was scare of boys. I was, I didn’t trust people, you know, and I have like very, very, you know, just bad trauma from that. So, it just, I think us as people have to, you know, work on ourselves and get and get right with God and pray and continue to try to grow and be better and stronger but It’s not an easy thing to do. But I know i’ve I worked on it for years now and I can say that you know I forgive my mom, you know, and I’m good with everything. You know what i’m saying? Like I put that stuff behind me and I just moved forward That’s the best way to be, you know, I don’t try living in one part of my life. Had I lived in a five-year-old Claressa’s brain, you know, I wouldn’t be here. You know, because she was scared to take chances. She was scared to speak up for herself. She was scared of everybody and everything. And, you know, she’s angry and I’m just not, I’m not her anymore. Like I have some of her in me, but I’ve grown from that.

DG: Once Clarissa was able to work through her trauma, she started to find her rhythm in the ring.

[MUSIC]

ANNOUNCER: Seconds out, round one!

[BELL DINGS]

BROADCASTER: The opening bell sound in the first ever women’s 75-kilogram…

DG: During the 2012 middleweight Olympics finals, she was up against Nadezhda Torlopova, a 33-year-old champion from Russia. Nadezha had years of experience on Claressa. It seemed kind of unfair.

BROADCASTER: Two contrasting styles these boxers possess. They’re at opposite ends of the age and experience spectrum as well.

DG: But Claressa established her dominance early, using quick footwork to stalk Nadezhda around the ring. She took an early lead.

BROADCASTER: The blazing combinations of Claressa Shields are simply overwhelming and getting the better of Torlopova.

DG: By the end of the third round, Claressa was up by five points.

BROADCASTER 2: So, so confident for somebody so young.

BROADCASTER: And then stuck her tongue out just to reinforce the point as she lands with a…

DG: The score, 19 to 12\. Claressa was declared the winner.

BROADCASTER: Punched her way to Olympic immortality.

DG: As the announcer is calling her name, you can see her face light up. This was the moment she had worked so hard for.

So you get to London, you win Olympic gold. What’s the high point? Like what’s the memory from London that stays with you forever?

CS: I will say for me, I just felt like internal happiness and I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders when I won my Olympic gold medal. Those are the two ways that I can explain it. I felt like a huge relief and then I felt like internal happiness at the highest peak. I was so happy, you know, there was nothing anybody could tell me about anything once I won my Olympic gold medal because all the years that I have put into it, starting boxing at the age of 11 and started my journey to become Olympic champion at age 13\. To actually do it and be on the gold medal podium at 17 years old, It just was so healing for me. I think that that kind of you know helped me kind of start transforming and going into my soft girl era, you know some because I don’t think it was anything soft about me at the age of 17\. (Laughs)

DG: As the high of becoming an Olympic champion started to settle, the reality of being a woman in boxing hit Claressa. At the time, the sport was just starting to take off, so there wasn’t a whole lot of money to be made. People were only used to seeing female athletes in more traditionally feminine sports like gymnastics or swimming, but boxing that was seen as just too violent. And with how Clarissa talked about herself and her sport, about how she loved beating people up and making them cry. Well, it made her hard to sell.

It sounds like the months afterwards when you were facing the reality that you weren’t getting the big sponsorship deals that you were expecting, there was a recognition of how women’s boxing was not treated like other sports and wasn’t getting that respect it deserved. Tell me how that felt and what you were going through in those months coming down from the Olympics.

CS: I mean, well, one, I was extremely happy. Let’s not ever forget that. But as far as the endorsements and the sponsorship, I did feel like I deserved those, but they didn’t come, which was very confusing and very hard to deal with and a very hard pill to swallow. But you just keep on going, you know what I’m saying? I mean for years I heard “They’re not respecting your Olympic gold medal.” “Your Olympic gold metal isn’t as special as the other sports.” You know, “You’re not getting what you deserve. They doing you wrong.” And I heard that for years.

DG: And did you actually feel those things or was that what other people were telling you?

CS: I definitely felt left out, you know, and I thought that I deserve, you know, when you’re the best in the world at something.

[MUSIC]

CS: One endorsement, one sponsorship, something. And I didn’t get any of that and I wasn’t very like vocal back then. So nobody can say, oh, she posted this on social media. Oh, she’s this way. She’s that way. I was very still quiet very much to myself. I was in the 12th grade when I got back to school. So I was a, I, was a phenom. You know, and I was just the best boxer in the world at 17 years old. So, I mean, you know everybody dreams of being the Nike athlete, you know and getting the $200 million deal. You know, everybody dreams of that who’s a super athlete and best in the world. So I thought that those, that those deals were, were coming and they didn’t. But, I mean you just, I kind of sat in it for a little bit. And then I just kind of got over it and said, you know what, realizing that boxing, well, women’s boxing was a new sport. The first time they were allowed in the Olympics, I was the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in America. The only person to do it, 2012\. None of the men won any medals in 2012\. I won a gold medal. And so I was just like, you know, what? Let me just try and do it again. You know, let me just go back and do again. And maybe if I get two Olympic gold medals. They won’t be able to ignore my greatness.

DG: Which, and we should say, you did do it again. You won another Olympic gold four years later. And what, if anything, was the difference after that one?

CS: Oh no, leading up to the 2016 Olympics, I started getting endorsements and sponsorships and deals, you know, leading up to that. And I was in a lot of commercials with NBC Olympics and I had won the world championships twice leading up the Olympics and I won the Pan Ams again and I was undefeated winning every tournament you can think of.

DG: What changed? Was it just time passing and people realizing that women’s boxing was deserved respect? Do you feel like people were seeing you differently? What was the evolution that was happening?

CS: I think I was having somewhat of an evolution. And I think that people were talking about me a lot more than they were leading up to the first Olympics. Like now, oh, she’s coming back again. And then I was winning every tournament you can think of. Like I said, the Pan Ams, I was winning all these different tournaments and I was winning them easy. You know, USA versus China, beating those girls up. USA versus Canada, going across the country, fighting against Russia, fighting against Kazakhstan, fighting against China, all these big countries. I was just beating everybody easy. I think that they weren’t able to deny that.

DG: Claressa has long used her platform to bridge the gender equity gap in boxing. She’s argued for three minute rounds, similar to the men to increase competitiveness and entertainment value. She’s fought for better TV time, promotion and recognition for all female boxers. Claressa has also secured her own historic $8 million multi-fight deal, making her one of the highest paid female boxers.

Do you feel like you played a big role in getting respect for this sport?

CS: Absolutely, you know, I played a huge role, like up in the movie “The Fire Inside,” I spoke up for all the women on the U.S. Olympic team to get the equal pay that the men were getting. You know, and I let that be a thing of letting them know, like, listen, I won’t even go back to the Olympics if you guys don’t do this, you, guys don’t honor this.

DG: Why was that important to you? Like why did you feel like that was something else that was on your shoulders?

[MUSIC]

CS: Listen, equality is equality. You know, I grew up in a gym with all guys and my coach didn’t tell me, “Hey, Ressa you do 10 push-ups, hey boys, y’all do 20.” Everything that the boys did, I did. If he told us to run eight laps around Berston Field House, I ran eight laps with the boys. And most of the times, I came in first. You know when it came to sparring, I put my head gear and my mouthpiece on just like them. I took the punches. I did the push-ups. I did the crunches. I did the drills. I ran the steps. I did everything that the boys did. So when it came to equality for me, it was like now I have an Olympic gold medal and they got guys who don’t have an Olympic gold medal, and they’re getting paid more than me? That don’t make no sense. If we’re going to be fair, the guys should be getting paid less than me, not me getting paid less then them. So if it was that unfair on that end that I had a whole Olympic gold medal versus the men who had nothing and they were getting paid more than me. Can you imagine what the girls who didn’t have Olympic gold medals was getting paid versus them? So that was the reason why I spoke up and, you know, I spoke up and said, like, that’s that’s just not right. And we all have to do the same work. And living at the Olympic Training Center, once again, we all did the same workouts together. Whatever the boys did, whatever the girl, we all did the same workouts, had the same coaches, put in the same sacrifice, same time. So I just was like, this doesn’t make sense. If you guys are saying that you’re not sexist and that you are for equality, well, 100 equals 100, not 100 equals 10\. So let’s get it together. And I wanted to stand up for that. And I was the strongest voice because I had the most accomplishments to do that.

DG: The last question I have, when you’re throwing punches and also when you are successful today, like at all you’re doing, is there an element of revenge on your life or would you describe it differently?

CS: Best revenge is your paper.

[MUSIC]

CS: Your money, your success. So the best revenge you can get on anybody is having your success and getting you some paper.

DG: And do you feel like you’re doing that, is that what you’re doing today, do you think?

CS: Killing them. Killing them. Easy. I mean, I’m successful, I am beautiful, very well accomplished in my sport. Killing them. Like, so that’s the revenge for me. I don’t, I think for me, when you say like revenge, like I don’t, revenge on what? You know, like I had a tough upbringing. So what? That’s how I feel about it like, so what? You know? It’s not something that I, that people should dwell on and ponder on. It’s like, look, it happened. You know a lot of things happen to us that when we’re kids that we can’t control. But now at the age of, at the age of 13, I started controlling my life. If I hadn’t started making decisions for my own life, I would still be poor right now.. I made the decision that I was going to fight for me and my family and that I was going get some money, get some success and be the best at it and put in the work. I think that everybody needs to have that mindset. So for me, the best revenge is your paper. And even though I say paper, that’s me saying your success because all success is not money. Like your accomplishment. Best revenge is your accomplishments and your reward for your hard work. That is the revenge to me

DG: Feel really lucky to have met you. Thanks, Claressa.

CS: Of course, thanks for watching the movie. Appreciate that.

[MUSIC]

DG: Next time on Sports in America.

BROADCASTER: Long range effort from Lloyd, oh my goodness! It’s a hat-trick with one of the most incredible goals you’re ever likely to see.

DG: This weekend, the National Women’s Soccer League kicks off its regular season with games all over the country and we are sitting down with one of the biggest legends to ever play in the league, Carli Lloyd.

CARLI LLOYD: People really misunderstood me in the beginning of my career. You know, all they saw was literally the tunnel vision, the crazy eyes.

DG: We’re gonna unpack her 17 years as a pro, the unrelenting hard work that got her to the international stage and the sacrifices she made to stay there.

CL: When people see a successful person, but also a confident person who’s not afraid to say what they think, a lot of people can’t handle that. And I think because I’m female, it has never kind of gone over well with people. They just label you as arrogant.

DG: That is next time on Sports in America. And we also want to hear from you. How about you drop us a line. You can write us at sportsinamerica@whyy.org. That’s sportsinamerica@whhyy.org Thanks everybody. We’ll see you next time for more Sports in America.

This is Sports in America, I’m your host, David Greene.

Our executive producers are Joan Isabella and Tom Grahsler.

Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Winberg and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa.

Our engineers are Mike Villers and Adam Staniszewski. Our talent booker is Britt Kahn. Our tile artwork was created by Bea Walling. Sports in America is a production of WHYY in Philadelphia, and it’s distributed by PRX. Some of our interviews were originally created by Religion of Sports, with special thanks to Adam Schlossman. You can find Sports in American on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeartRadio app, you know, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Host: David Greene
Executive Producers: Joan Isabella, Tom Grahsler
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Talent Booker: Britt Kahn
Engineer: Mike Villers, Adam Staniczeski
Tile Art: Bea Walling

Sports in America is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.

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