Undisputed champions Alycia Baumgardner and Claressa Shields clashed publicly last Saturday during the Hitchins-Lemos event at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas, Nevada, sparking some controversy. Though the altercation between the two would suggest a fight could be in the making, Shields’ promoter, Dmitry Salita, spoke on the facetious attempts by Baumgardner to draw attention by herself while using Shields’ name, and further remarked on the unrealistic nature of the match given the weight disparity between the two fighters.
Stunningly, Dmitry Salita went on to claim during a recent interview that there had never been any genuine attempts by Alycia Baumgardner (15-1, 7 KO’s) and her team to approach Claressa Shields (14-0, 2 KO’s) for a fight, despite Baumgardner having apparently known both Salita and Shields for a number of years, and having more than a couple means to reach out to them personally.
“This whole thing started when Alycia [Baumgardner] called out Claressa [Shields] in a way that was really surprising to me and disappointing because of our friendship and relationship over all these years,” Salita told FightHype.com. “I felt that [with] us knowing each other, she could have called Claressa or myself and said, ‘I have this plan [but] I’m on a suspension. I want to stay relevant, maybe we can talk about doing a fight together in Detroit’, something like that, and then things can happen.
“None of that happened, and the way this [callout] happened was not tactful from where I come from and where I stand. I just don’t think that this was the right way to go about it.“
Last year, while Baumgardner’s initial callout to Shields was not disrespectful, the subsequent months saw the two engage in a Twitter/X beef that resulted in insults being thrown back and forth.
Salita also went on to highlight that there had been no genuine attempts by Alycia Baumgardner and/or her team to seek a fight with Claressa Shields, and suggested the entire callout was more so a publicity stunt by Baumgardner.
“We can make a soap opera out of it, but I’d like to keep thing simple,” Salita continued. “When Alycia started doing the talking, Claressa told me to make the fight. I was kind of bewildered because she [Baumgardner] was still under under suspension and she had other things to worry about.
“Why is she attaching herself to Claressa. She’s three or four divisions below her, [it] doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, I followed up, I called her managers, talked to them; no interest. I didn’t even get a callback in the beginning, but I kept calling and texting; no interest.
“Her representatives told me, ‘we’re not interested, not now, maybe in a couple of years’, maybe this, maybe that. Then I saw when they were going back and forth [on social media], ‘you said 147 [lbs]’. It’s not a real callout. It’s physically impossible for Claressa to come down [to] 147 lbs. It’s ridiculous, because it’s unrealistic.
“The lowest Claressa can make, and she hasn’t made that weight in many years, is 154 pounds. That’s the reality, and it’s the known reality because I’ve said this to people that are working with Alycia, and it’s obvious. So, if you want to make the fight happen, if you’re truthful about it and you put your money where your mouth is, then that’s the absolute lowest weight Claressa can make.
“It can be for significant titles, for undisputed; let’s make it happen. And if not, stop attaching yourself to Claressa and using her name to promote yourself. Every opportunity she [Baumgardner] gets she attaches herself to Claressa. So, the fight can happen it will be a great event. I believe it will sell out the Little Caesar in Detroit.“
Salita’s assertion that Baumgardner’s team never made an attempt to contact him for an actual fight puts everything into perspective as no fight is made by simply calling another fighter out on social media. Regardless of what was said between Baumgardner and Shields, the representatives of both fighters would have to genuinely commit to creating the bout, and Dmitry Salita appears to have been met with little to no interest when he actually approached Baumgardner’s manager[s].
It is therefore hard to construe Alycia Baumgardner’s callouts and public wishes to fight Claressa Shields as anything other than a means to generate publicity for herself. In the business of boxing, there can be many barriers to prevent a fight from occurring, but the lack of interest that Salita alleges Baumgardner’s representatives have in even entering negotiations spells out enough regarding the seriousness of Baumgardner’s callout towards Shields.
As of now, Alycia Baumgardner has enough on her plate with her reputation still having suffered a blow due to the drug test that she failed last year. Despite her suspension having been lifted by the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC), Baumgardner is still under probation by the WBC. Moreover, the details of the ABC’s decision to remove the suspension they had imposed on her remain unclear, with the organization refusing to comment on what led to their decision, and not detailing the exact procedures that they and Baumgardner went through to see her cleared of intentional doping.
Currently, Alycia Baumgardner is expected to fight mandatory challenger Delfine Persoon (49-3, 19 KO’s) next given the WBC recently ordered the two to face each other. Baumgardner will be defending all of her super featherweight/junior lightweight titles if a match with Persoon is arranged.
While Dmitry Salita seemed open to a bout between Baumgardner and Shields, he himself spoke of the disparity in weight between the two fighters with Baumgardner having not moved beyond the 130 lbs division where she is currently the undisputed champion at, while Shields remains the undisputed champion at middleweight.
Realistically, there is no real possible way for the two to fight on a level playing field, with a bout between the two women only being plausible if Baumgardner is willing to move up to 154 lbs, like Salita stated, which is the lowest weight at which Shields can supposedly fight. Because there are weight classes for a reason, it is unlikely that Baumgardner can make a astronomical leap in weight of 24 lbs and be at her best, which begs to question how serious Baumgardner was to begin with given she has never fought any higher than super featherweight.
Then there is the matter of neither fighter having titles at 154 lbs, which Salita also stated needs to be a perquisite for the fight to be made at that weight class. With there being quite a couple of factors that threaten to make a fight between the two women implausible, Baumgardner’s continued callouts to Shields is indicative of the latest trend in boxing where fighters with a lower reputation call out more accomplished or well-known fighters while making no actual attempts to make a fight.
