“Do you want to entertain a fight or do you not?’’ heavyweight champ Claressa Shields asked after her team put up $15 million to lure the boxing legend's daughter.
Heavyweight boxing champion Claressa Shields had her life dramatized in the 2024 movie “The Fire Inside” but now she’s trying to light a fire under former great Laila Ali to unretire at age 47.
Shields and her team offered the daughter of Muhammad Ali $15 million to fight her several days ago but told USA Today on Tuesday that they had yet to hear back.
“Do you want to entertain a fight or do you not?’’ Shields asked. “And I think that she should let me and the public know because the public is very, very interested.”
“Honestly, a fight with me and Laila Ali would be one of the biggest fights in women’s boxing,” she added. “I think we should do it for the culture. We should do it for the boxing culture. We should do it for so many to prove who is the best.”
Laila Ali (24-0 with 21 knockouts) who’s the eighth of the boxing legend’s nine children, last fought in 2007 after winning world titles in the super middleweight and light heavyweight divisions.
Despite Ali’s age and ring rust, the 30-year-old Shields (16-0 with 3 knockouts) said she saw no problem with an intergenerational clash.
“I see people complaining and saying her age and everything,’’ the two-time Olympic gold medalist said. “But Laila has been constantly picking at me, constantly talking trash about me for the past, I don’t know, six, seven years. And she always talks about how she can come out of retirement and the reason she hasn’t come out of retirement (is) because nobody’s good enough, the bag isn’t good enough.’’
In 2019, Ali suggested there was no worthy opponent for her to reenter the ring, which Shields took as a diss.
In a video shared by TMZ on July 18, Shields replayed Ali appearing to say she would put on the gloves again for $15 million.
“Laila, I got great news for you,” Shields said. “We got the $15 million. Let’s make a fight between me and you. The best vs. the best. The great vs. the great.”
Shields, who fights on Saturday against Lani Daniels in Detroit, could be taking a cue from Jake Paul. The social media personality-turned-boxer reportedly earned $40 million for his megabout against former champ Mike Tyson, then 58, last November.
HuffPost has reached out to a rep for Laila Ali.
Category: General Sports
