Claressa Shields showed off her impressive body transformation as she gears up to make her PFL debut.

Shields is the current Undisputed Middleweight Women’s boxing champion after beating Savannah Marshall to win all the belts. She joined a unique club and became a two-weight undisputed champion in the four-belt era alongside Terence Crawford and Naoya Inoue. She will go down as a Hall of Famer. However, she is also looking to conquer MMA as she prepares to make her comeback. 

Her current record is 1-1. Her first MMA fight was a third-round knockout of B. Elkin. But she failed to replicate that success as she lost her next fight against A. Montes via a split decision. But Shields recently signed a deal to join the PFL. She joined other stars such as Francis Ngannou, Jake Paul, Amanda Serrano, and Savannah Marshall.

Shields has not fought since her victory over Maricela Cornejo last June to retain her Undisputed Middleweight Title. However, during this period, Shields underwent various mental health struggles. The fighter recalled how she put on significant weight as personal issues impacted her. The following images show Shields dropping pounds as she returns to her peak physical condition. 

Shields’ Transformation

“It wasn’t nothing involving boxing why I was down. Real-life stuff happened that I can’t really go into detail about. People have family problems, relationship problems, and problems with yourself that you can’t really figure out.

“At the end of the day, I feel like I conquered it. I’ve only had to deal with depression a few times in my life, and it always feels different every time it creeps back on you. It’s all about if you’re going to let depression win or not, and I decided to win like I do everything else,” Shields said 

Despite this being the case, it is essential to remember that Shields suffered a significant amount of criticism from the boxing community. This first started after she called out male boxer Keith Thurman for a fight. Thurman is the former Unified Welterweight Champion of the World. Shields claimed she had enough skills to outbox him, as Thurman said he could beat her with one hand.

Sheilds’ Struggles

“If Keith can downplay the greatest woman of all time and say he’ll put on bigger gloves and [fight with] one hand, you’re dang right I can say I’m a better boxer than him because it’s the truth. I ain’t never been dropped with a body shot. I ain’t lost in my career, I’ve got more belts than him, more gold medals than him, and I move better than him. If he can talk that trash about me, I’m going to talk that trash on him. Keith Thurman ain’t that good to beat me with one hand and bigger gloves,” Shields stated 

That was followed up by another incident in which a leaked video showed Shields being dropped in sparring by male boxer Arturs Ahmetovs. The incident occurred in 2018 when the female boxer claimed that the fighter had removed the padding from his gloves, which he denied. Shields hit back, saying a body shot had never dropped her. 

“I can’t make this up. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never been KO’d in seventeen years, and I’ve been dropped twice [by Ahmetovs] all in a week of each other. I have no shame in that. But for a male fighter to literally take the padding out his gloves, he’s a punk. Him and coach Derik Santos are bad for the sport,” Shields said

Those two high-profile incidents did damage her reputation on social media. As she prepares to take on Kelsey DeSantis on the PFL vs Bellator: Champ card in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, Shields can silence her critics with a win.