"More attention for women in the UFC than in boxing"
Olympic gold medalist in boxing, Claressa Shields, claims that women in the UFC get more attention than women in boxing.
There has been talk for some time now of a potential match between the UFC doubles champion, Amanda Nunes, and the Olympic gold medalist in boxing, Claressa Shields. Now Shields celebrates MMA as a sport as women get more attention there than in boxing according to her.
More attention for women in the UFC
It was during the podcast "The Last Stand Podcast" that Shields said that she sees women getting more attention, especially in the UFC, compared to the attention she herself received in boxing.
In MMA there’s just more exposure than women’s boxing. I hate to say it… from me just looking at social media, from me just seeing that they are the main event on every other card and people are coming and filling up arenas for them. We do not have that in women’s boxing. I haven’t even been on pay-per-view yet and I’m a three-time division world champion. But Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis is about to be on pay-per-view. It's like, it's just not equal.
One of Shield's examples of how the UFC gives women more attention is how women get to go to major matches at big galas.
Over in the MMA, I love how it's equal. You have some fights where the men are the main event. And you have the same amount when the women are. Women are on pay-per-view and in boxing, it’s just not the same way.
Less attention in boxing
As an example of how women get less attention in boxing, Shields tells about how it took much longer before her match against Hannah Gabriel to get a poster than before a later match where men played the main match.
I noticed that when I fought against Hannah Gabriel, I noticed that we did not get a poster for until we were like 5 weeks out from the fight, which, that's a decent amount of time, but when you pay attention and see that they 're talking about another fight that's two months or two months and-a-half out, that's 8 to 10 weeks compared to 5. But they wanted to get as many viewers for the guys they promoted through promos and commercials. We get the same amount of exposure but with less time of promotion. So I spoke on that and I do not think it was done on purpose, but I feel like they did not have any other women fighters before speak on that.
Shields concluded that she has worked to draw more attention to female boxing and that today there are really good female boxers.
I’ve been trying to figure out ways to get more exposure through boxing and to welcome everybody to see that the game of women’s boxing has changed. We have some great fighters now. They were good back then, no disrespect, but we’ve got women who actually make boxing their careers. I’ve been boxing since I was 11 years old, I’m 25, that’s 14 years!
Should a meeting between Nunes and Shields be canceled, it is currently uncertain when it could happen.