Unified junior middleweight champion and undisputed middleweight champ Claressa Shields took to her Instagram account on Tuesday in celebration of turning 25 and becoming a new home owner.
Shields wrote, "Speak it, believe it, become it! New home owner! Going into the 25th chapter of my life in a few days & what a huge step! I’m blessed! Self belief and hard work and just favor by God. Amen!"
For Shields, celebrating her birthday as a new home owner is just the latest achievement in what has been a glorious past few years for the Flint, Mich., native. After becoming the first American boxer — male or female — to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals (2012 and 2016), Shields began her journey in the pro boxing ranks in November 2016, and it wouldn't take long before she started making history — or herstory, as she calls it.
In less than a year after her pro debut, Shields became a unified super middleweight world champion via a fifth-round TKO of Nikki Adler in August 2017. She then set her sights on the middleweight division, first delivering a unanimous decision over Hanna Gabriel to become the unified WBA/IBF middleweight champ in June 2018. Roughly five months later, Shields added the WBC middleweight strap with a unanimous decision over Hannah Rankin.
An April 2019 unanimous decision over Christina Hammer made Shields the second woman in boxing history to become an undisputed champion, as she added the missing piece to her crown — the WBO title.
This past January, Shields dominated Ivana Habazin to win the vacant WBC and WBO junior middleweight titles and become the quickest boxer — man or woman — to be crowned a three-division world champ. Since it took her only 10 fights to reach the feat, Shields was more than happy to double down on her claim of being the "Greatest Woman of All Time" afterward.
Shields (10-0, 2 KOs) has a fight slated against Marie-Ève Dicaire on May 9. Whether COVID-19 allows the fight to happen remains to be seen, but when the day arrives, Shields will have a chance to become the first female boxer to hold two undisputed crowns simultaneously since she'll be putting her WBC and WBO titles up against Diclaire's IBF strap, with the vacant WBA belt also on the line.