Claressa Shields on Conquering The Pros, Hobnobbing With Celebrities, and Drinking Bottled Water in Flint

Claressa Shields, America's most decorated Olympic boxer, is back home in Flint, MI.

The two-time gold medalist and subject of the 2015 documentary, "T-Rex: Her Fight for Gold," is training for her third professional fight, an eight-round bout against bruising super middleweight Mery Rancier scheduled for June 16 at Detroit's Masonic Temple.

Those familiar with the thick file that is Shields's story know that she loves her home town, but being there can be a bit of a mixed bag. Aside from the unemployment, poverty, and contaminated water that has come to define the city, Shields admits that there are "a lot of distractions here."

She insists they're not the kind of distractions that would prevent her from improving to 3-0 as a professional and possibly challenging for a title this summer. But were it not for trainer Jason Crutchfield, who coaches at Flint's legendary F.W.C. Berston Boxing Club, Shields would be working down near her home in sunny Florida.

"I told him, 'Beginning of next year, we're going to start having camp back in Florida, where I live,'" she said.

Shields will always be from Flint. Her family members live in a house she owns there, but she's also a citizen of the world now. Since turning pro with a win over Franchon Crews Dezurn, another decorated American amateur, and following that with a knockout of Hungary's Szilvia Szabados, Shields has only become more popular.

Her Twitter account now chronicles increasingly frequent run-ins with celebrities and Shields is being invited to top fights, like Saul "Canelo" Alvarez's dominating win over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on Saturday.

Most importantly, Shields is taking care of business.

Shields just signed with promoter Dmitriy Salita, the longtime Brooklyn boxer who fought Amir Khan for the WBA world super lightweight title back in 2009. He hasn't stepped inside the ring since 2013, but Salita has been promoting fights in both Brooklyn and Detroit, where he made Shields the first female boxer to headline a fight card on a premium cable network. (Shields' knockout of Svabados was the final fight on Showtime's "ShoBox: The Next Generation" broadcast back on March 10.)

Shields is headlining Salita's card again on June 16, and should she beat the 32-year-old Rancier (7-8-3, 5 KOs), the fighter known as "T-Rex" hopes to put herself in position to face WBC world super middleweight champion Nikki Adler (16-0, 9 KOs) in the near future.

In other words, with another win, Shields could cement herself as a headliner after just three professional fights—something that any aspiring boxer, man or woman, can only dream of.

The following is a Q&A with the charming champion, who was being shuttled back home from another workout:

FIGHTLAND: How did you get connected with Dmitriy Salita, your first promoter?
CLARESSA SHIELDS: It all started from the fight that I had on Showtime. He ended up coming down to the gym and watching me train. And then after that, he was just so supportive throughout the whole thing. When we were getting ready before the right, he called me every other day just about. We were able to spend a lot of time together. And it didn't seem like he was a promoter. He wasn't just about business. He was also very social and funny. And I like for everything that I'm doing to be kind of family oriented. We can all make money together, but at the same time, it's all about family, helping each other. So after [my last fight] is when they offered me the deal. My manager asked me, I said "I'm fine with it—I just want him to know, I'm a two-time Olympic gold medalist and I want to fight on TV." And I wanted a certain amount of money and they came with that correct amount, so we made things work.

Is it helpful to have an experienced promoter who is also an experienced boxer?
Yeah, someone who actually understands training and when you want to cut off the interviews that you might be tired of doing. It's very important. [A lot of people think] 'Oh, you're a great woman fighter and you can conquer the world,' and all that is true. But at the same time, [he understands], 'She's a fighter, she gets tired, she doesn't want to be bothered sometimes.' He understood all that. It's definitely good that he used to box.

He's also funny too.

What's the best part of being a pro now?
I'd have to say the new fans and more exposure. I've been in two Olympics and I'm known worldwide. I've been to certain countries, and stuff like that, but it's just like, you always want to be an American hero to everybody that boxes. I feel like I was an American hero, but I was also an international hero. And I always wanted to be an American hero, like Muhammad Ali was to the U.S. He was a champ. And I want to be the champ here in America and I want everybody to know me more.

What has surprised you about being a professional?
In the amateurs, I'm used to getting a schedule at the beginning of the year. It shows all the tournaments that we're gonna fight in, and it shows you the possibilities of how many countries will show up and which countries will show up.

In the pros, it's not like that. There's not no set date. Dates get changed. One minute you're preparing for June 3rd, the next it's June 16th. It's all over the board.

Neither of your first two opponents really connected any major power punches against you, but do you feel differently without the head gear you wore as an amateur? How much of a change is that?
The only thing that's different about the no headgear is the head butts. I never dealt with that in my life before. It's very different and some refs don't even call for it.

And those head butts hurt. From my first fight, against Franchon, I think my freaking forehead was stinging for two days. I was like "What the heck?" I never thought that boxing hurt. But after that fight, I was like "ouch."

I'm a good fighter, but I'm a very clean fighter. I'm not head butting people.

I think sometimes a girl wants to get to me so bad, but she don't know how to use her feet or her hands to get in, so she just comes in with her head. Szilvia Szabados head butted me two times.

How significant was it to be the main event on a Showtime broadcast?
I think it's significant because you can see who the people are showing up to watch.

It shows that women can sell cards and that the fans want to see us box… I feel like a lot of women have been given a chance, and some have a large fan base, but nobody ever thinks, "Oh, that's a spectacular fighter."

It's always like, "she can fight," but nobody ever talks about her skill or power.

I have never seen a woman box as good as me. And the only one I think was anything close to me is Lucia Rijker… and Katie Taylor.

But they always say that women are tough fighters and they just get in there and brawl, like [retired champion] Christy Martin. Christy Martin would get a bloody nose and just brawl it out.

But that's the thing about women's boxing. A lot of them know how to jab and throw a right hand better than the men, but we don't always get to see that. Some of those women don't get put on TV. And some of those women give up and think, "Oh, we can't actually make any money in the pros."

Me fighting against Franchon was a close match because we're both skilled, fought each other before in the amateurs, and we both have that amateur background and amateur experience. Also, the international experience. We fought in the same tournaments coming up. I'd get the gold and she'd get the silver or the bronze. You put us together and you see the skill set of two really skilled fighters in the ring with each other.

After your amateur career, you started as a professional with more experience than most pro men.
I think some fighters get afraid of that when they hear [the crowd] booing them coming out and all that stuff. But I think it's tough to fight me anywhere to be honest. I'm building up my fan base. Obviously, where I'm from people want to come out and support me and we want to pack the house. But I think anywhere I go, I'll get a good crowd reaction. When they come to Michigan to fight against me, they're fighting against me, they're fighting against the crowd. Just knowing that they came, to me I feel like they're coming to my back yard. They have to have that feeling that, "I really have to kill her to win," when they really don't have a chance to win anyway.

I would go anywhere and fight anybody.

I will fight Tori Nelson up in Washington D.C. or wherever Kali Reis is from—I'll fight there too. (Note: Reis is from Providence, RI). And I'll fight them all in their back yard, and I'll win. Period.

It's about building women's boxing. We're not gonna go somewhere we don't have a fan base. We want to fight in front of a crowd of people—thousands of people—so we can become a scene that more people will want to come to. And right now, that place is Detroit, Michigan.

Some have discussed pushing women's rounds from two to three minutes in length. Would you be in favor of that?
No. I like two minutes. I think that's what makes women's boxing more exciting than men's boxing.

Some women feel like they want to box three minutes. Me? No, I want to have to GO. I want to have to work for the round. If guys had two-minute rounds, you would see guys get in there and start fighting. There are too many fights where they're jus looking at each other. We got boxers throwing two or three punches in a round.

Then you have all these close fights and all these supposed robberies [on the cards]. If there was just two minutes for the men, they would have to pick up their pace.

I actually like that about women's boxing. We get in there and we got two minutes to win this round. It's chop-down season. You got to keep on chopping down that tree, and you got to do it fast.

With three minutes it's like, "Yeah, whatever."

If I had to fight for three minutes, I would prepare for it. But this is boxing. It's not some sport you can't get hurt in. The less time I got to be in there—24 minutes for a WBC belt or 36 minutes for a WBC belt? Either way it goes, I still have the belt.

You want to get paid more and work less. So I'm in favor of the two-minute rounds.

Is boxing back in 2017?
Yeah, definitely. I think they're making the right matchups. There was a lot of [boxers] ducking each other. But now there are a lot of great fights like Shawn Porter and Andre Berto. Who would have thought that fight was gonna get made? I can't believe they fought each other. It's insane.

Then we have Danny Garcia fighting against Keith Thurman. And then we have Errol Spence getting ready to go up against Kell Brook [on May 27]. These are great matchups and great fighters fighting each other in their prime. Some are up-and-coming and some are peaking. You see these guys fighting each other. I think boxing has taken a different turn and there's gonna be some really good fights.

The time of guys ducking each other is over.

I don't think that a woman in boxing that has a belt will be able to duck me. Whoever the top dog is, who I'm supposed to fight, we're gonna fight.