Claressa Shields and Franchon Crews-Dezurn training together for June fights

Undisputed champions Claressa Shields and Franchon Crews-Dezurn are preparing one another for their upcoming fights in June, with the two taking a minute in camp to address one another’s opponents.

Shields will defend her undisputed middleweight championship in a rematch against Hanna Gabriels on June 3, while Crews-Dezurn heads to the UK on June 17 to defend her super middleweight crown against Savannah Marshall.

Marshall, of course, is Shields’ longtime rival, and the two finally met in the pros last year, with Shields winning by unanimous decision.

“Savannah Marshall, she’s beating your ass, I’ll make sure of it,” Shields said.

“Hanna Gabriels, round two, knockout this time,” Crews-Dezurn said.

Here’s a bit more from them in camp.

It’s worth noting that Shields (13-0, 2 KO) hasn’t scored a stoppage win since her fourth pro fight in 2017, despite constantly promising that the next fight will have one.

Shields first beat Gabriels (21-2-1, 12 KO) back in 2018. It was the fight where Shields suffered a flash knockdown in round one, then went on to dominate most of the fight, which by Shields standards is really competitive, kind of like when you’d play NCAA Football video games back in the day and be, like, “Damn, I only won this one 35-14. A real nailbiter.”

Gabriels, 40, hasn’t fought in two years, when she weighed over 177 lbs for a “title fight” win against Martha Patricia Lara Gaytan in Costa Rica. Shields’ current problem is that she has basically done all there is for her to do at age 28, and now we’re getting into reruns. DraftKings are listing Shields as a -3500 favorite, which seems about right.

Crews-Dezurn (8-1, 2 KO) is a longtime friend of Shields’, and the two even turned pro against one another in 2016, with Shields winning a four-round decision:

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

Crews-Dezurn, 36, fully unified the super middleweight division last April against Elin Cederroos. The 31-year-old Marshall (12-1, 10 KO) may wind up coming in as the betting favorite against Crews-Dezurn, but it’s a really good matchup.