Claressa Shields made history last summer, when she became the first American to capture gold medals in boxing in back-to-back Olympics. She headlined a Showtime boxing event on Friday, marking the first time a women’s bout had ever shouldered a premium network broadcast. Shields aimed for a knockout and made good on her promise.
The end came at 1:30 of the fourth round, where Shields slammed a left hook into Szabados’ jaw and improved to 2-0 with her first pro knockout in front of hundreds of her hometown fans in Detroit. Her win capped off a solid night in the latest “ShoBox: The New Generation” installment and brought with it the vacant NABF female middleweight title.
Meanwhile, Nikolay Potapov was just a pinch better than fellow bantamweight Antonio Nieves in the co-feature, winning a split decision over 10 hard-fought rounds. In what was more of a chess match, Potapov (17-0-1, 8 KOs) used better overall movement and landed the superior punches. Nieves (17-1-2, 9 KOs) tried making it brawl in spurts, but the Russian would not allow it. When it was all said and done, two judges favored Potapov with scores of 96-94, while the third cast the same score for Nieves.
Elsewhere, welterweight contender Wesley Tucker improved to 14-0 (8 KOs) with a dominant though uneventful unanimous decision over Ed Williams. The two fighters fought mostly in the clinch, igniting boos and jeers from the crowd. Williams (12-1-2, 4 KOs) had two points deducted in the fight for repeated blows to the back of the head. In the end, Tucker was the clear-cut winner, as he was awarded tallies of 77-73, 79-71 and 78-72.
In the opening bout, super bantamweight contender Joshua Greer Jr. won his ninth fight in a row by scoring a sensational one-punch knockout of James Gordon Smith in the sixth round. Greer (12-1-1, 5 KOs) controlled the action throughout with superior speed and accuracy and scored a knockdown in the fifth. Just as he was backing toward the ropes in the following frame, Greer delivered a perfect right hook to the jaw, knocking Smith (11-1, 6 KOs) face first onto the canvas. He was out cold, the end coming at 2:06 of Round 6.