NORTH GREENWICH
OCTOBER 15
MAIN EVENT
UNDERCARD
ATMOSPHERE
A WEEK can be a long time in boxing. seven days earlier, Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall served up a battle for the world middleweight title that will live long in the memory for all the right reasons.
In years ahead, it might be forgotten the bravery of Sky Sports and Boxxer in hiring the O2 Arena for an all-female show, not least because the chief supporting contest between Alycia Baumgardner and Mikaela Mayer featured two Americans. They got their reward, with reported viewing figures of more than 2m across various Sky channels and a near full house.
It was heart-warming stuff for anyone who cares about the future of a sport whose detractors are only too happy to leap on any indiscretion to condemn. Both main events lived up to the hype in different ways. Baumgardner-Mayer was a high-class, intense clash of styles; Shields-Marshall was a fast-paced classic.
It was not the belts that mattered – although Shields relished posing with them after claiming Marshall’s WBO title to collect all four for the third time – but Shields was able to settle possibly the best rivalry in
