It appears formal talks could be forthcoming between the teams of both Claressa Shields (10-0, 2 KOs) and Savannah Marshall (8-0, 6 KOs) for a rematch over eight years in the making, before 2020 is done.
Undisputed women's middleweight champion Shields, who also won the vacant WBC and WBO light-middleweight titles in her last outing against Croatia's Ivana Habazin in January, has only ever been defeated once at any level, professional or amateur.
That loss came against Britain's Marshall at the 2012 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships in Qinhuangdao, China. Marshall scored a second-round upset over the American on May 13, 2012, which meant Shields' qualification for the Olympic Games in London that summer depended on Marshall's own progress.
Ultimately, both fighters made it to the London ExCel, and it was Shields who won gold while Marshall was defeated 16-12 by Marina Volnova of Kazakhstan in the quarter-finals.
Earlier this week Marshall warned Shields over Twitter that her time as a champion would end this year. The bickering between both fighters also included Marshall's promoter Eddie Hearn branding the war of words "boring" and declaring: "let's just make the fight!"
Hearn's planning process seems to involve setting the two up as chief support to Anthony Joshua's defense of his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO heavyweight titles against Kubrat Pulev, a showdown the Matchroom boss admitted on Saturday's Fight Camp 4 broadcast that he expects to land in December.
He wrote: "Savannah [fights] in October so we can do December maybe on the AJ card... when is your next fight scheduled for Claressa?”
Marshall was due to make her first world title challenge on June 27 at Newcastle's Utilita Arena against WBO light-heavyweight champ Geovana Peres of New Zealand, until the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the entire sport for several months.
And though such a mouth-watering clash between two unbeaten professional boxers does not need anything more to add hype, the backstory of that fateful night in Qinhuangdao that could easily have rewritten Shields' entire biography makes it likely to follow recent thrillers in the women's ranks involving London 2012 Olympians, such as Katie Taylor vs. Delfine Persoon II and Terri Harper's draw with Marshall's Team GB stablemate Natasha Jonas.