For Claressa Shields, Repeat Titles Haven’t Come With Knockouts

Shields’s opponents also play a part.

Many pro prospects, regardless of gender, take easy fights to fatten their early career records. Shields instead fought for a world title in her fourth professional bout. All of her opponents have been high-level pros with the skills and durability that come with championship level boxing. The loss to Shields drops Cornejo’s record to 16-6 with six knockouts.

“I pressed for the knockout,” Shields said. “Maricela’s just tough.”

Cornejo accepted the bout with less than two weeks’ notice, after the original opponent, Hanna Gabriels, failed a doping test.

At the opening bell, Shields established position at the center of the ring, while Cornejo, who, at 5-foot-10, stood two inches taller than Shields, circled along the perimeter. Shields missed with a wild right hand, but tagged Cornejo with a left hook. Later, the fighters threw simultaneous right hands, but only Shields landed.

Those first few heavy blows did not dent Cornejo’s confidence.

The 36-year-old contender moved to Las Vegas in April, and began working with Ismael Salas, the Cuban émigré boxing trainer who has guided several boxers to world titles. Before the fight, Cornejo said her brief stint in Salas’s gym had already made her a smarter boxer and a more powerful puncher. Between rounds, Salas sought to reassure her.

“You hit harder than she does!” he shouted to Cornejo in Spanish after Round 4.

Inspired, Cornejo landed a straight right to open Round 5. Shields responded with several percussive punches and stayed on track.

“You got her attention. You got her respect,” Shields’s trainer, John David Jackson, said between rounds. “Now you’ve got to step to her. You’ve got to make her engage you.”

Organizers sought to emphasize the presentation of the fight in Detroit, roughly 70 miles south of where Shields grew up in Flint, Mich. Before the opening bell, the legendary Motown quartet The Four Tops sang the national anthem, and Shields, decked out in a glittering, gold-and-green two-piece kit, walked to the ring accompanied by Kash Doll, a Detroit-based rapper.