Boxing champion Claressa Shields has confirmed that she has booked her second mixed martial arts fight in the PFL following an initial report from Ariel Helwani

Claressa Shields

"That's where they paying at," Shields wrote, responding to a Twitter post by ESPN sharing the news on social media.  

The Olympic gold medallist will return to the cage on August 27 in Florida for her second MMA fight in three months against an unnamed opponent. The exact details of the line-up have yet be released by the PFL. 

In her professional MMA debut on June 10, former three-division world champion Shields (1-0), 26, of Flint, Michigan, defeated a bigger, stronger and more experienced Brittney Elkin behind closed doors at the Professional Fighters League 4 in Atlantic City. 

As expected, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt largely dominated the fight on the ground, but Shields showed great courage and determination to avoid taking any real damage, winning via third-round technical knockout.  

Speaking recently on the DAZN Boxing Show, Shields admitted that she remains very much a work in progress, saying: “I remember speaking to my coach - we worked this, it’s time to get up - and I was able to get up. A lot of the takedowns could have been avoided because I always ended up on top.

“I should have got back up to my striking but It was my first time and I was just so anxious on the ground, going for the ground and pound. I should have just got straight back up and created my space because I was so far ahead of her in the striking area.

“Other than that I think I did pretty good protecting myself. I didn’t take a lot of damage, as you can see. I was able to get the finish in the third round.”

Claressa Shields

“Winning my first MMA fight, it was so new, uncharted territory, there were so many more ways I could have lost,” she added. “I have never done it before, so to have been in there after seven months of training with a grappler, who has a brown belt in jiu-jitsu, I was super excited to win the fight.

"Just to have that comeback, losing the first round, maybe lost the second, then if you’re going to win the fight you’re going to have to knock her out.

“That doesn’t happen in debuts. I got out of an arm bar, she couldn’t get me in a triangle. She tried a lot of things and I was prepared.

"It wasn’t a nightmare for me because I‘ve been submerging myself in all those different arts. I can’t imagine anyone thinking MMA is easy."

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