Claressa Shields v Christina Hammer: undisputed middleweight championship – live!
- Shields (8-0, 2 KOs) faces Hammer (24-0, 11 KOs) in Atlantic City
- Winner unifies IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO middleweight titles
- Tweet Bryan at @BryanAGraham or email him
Hello and welcome to Atlantic City for tonight’s middleweight title unification fight between Claressa Shields and Christina Hammer. We’re ringside at the Adrian Phillips Theater at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall for what’s been called the most significant women’s boxing fight in a generation as Shields, the two-time Olympic gold medalist who’s captured three of the major world titles at 160lbs in the last year, and Christina Hammer, the German émigrée from Kazakhstan who has owned the fourth for nearly a decade, will meet to determine only the second champion in the history of women’s boxing to unify all four major championship belts.
The first of tonight’s two televised preliminary bouts has just finished … and practically before it started. Otto Wallin, the undefeated Swedish heavyweight comer from Sweden, was forced to settle for a no-contest after opponent Nick Kisner suffered a cut from an accidental clash of heads in the first round of their scheduled 10-rounder.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s his lookahead to tonight’s main event.
Related: Claressa Shields takes center stage on women’s boxing’s biggest night