The long-awaited battle to crown boxing's next undisputed women's champion is set to take place in Atlantic City in the fall.
It was announced that unified WBA and IBF women's middleweight champion Claressa Shields will fight fellow unified WBO and WBC champion Christina Hammer where the winner becomes the undisputed women's middleweight champion. The fight will headline a Showtime broadcast on November 17 at the Adrian Phillips Theater in the Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall at Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The fight has been building up since June when both Shields and Hammer retained their respective titles on a Showtime-televised card with Hammer hopping to the ring after Shields' victory over Hanna Gabriels.
There are two other undisputed champions in boxing. Oleksandr Usyk became the undisputed cruiserweight champion by winning the World Boxing Super Series earlier this year while the other undisputed champion is women's welterweight star Cecilia Braekhus, who has held all four major world titles since 2014. Terence Crawford was briefly the undisputed junior welterweight champion in 2017, but soon made the jump to welterweight.
Shields, a two-time Olympic gold medalist from 2012 and 2016, had a meteoric rise to the top of the sport. In just her fourth professional fight, Shields stopped Nikki Adler in the fifth round to win the unified WBC and IBF women's super middleweight titles. After retaining the titles, Shields dropped down to middleweight earlier this year when she defeated Gabriel to win her two middleweight titles.
Hammer also had a quick ascent to the world title, having won the WBO title in her eighth professional fight in 2010. Hammer would then go on to win the WBC title in 2016 and has since then made three successful title defenses of the unified titles.
