Claressa Shields on Laila Ali Comparisons

Was that a satisfying one for you because she was talking so much shit before so? It's not even about like the shit talking really. It was just about like how dare you guys compare her to me. That's what it was to me. It was like I had watched film of her and I had my eyes set on her since I was 17 before I even had Turn Pro and I knew them when I was 17. I couldn't beat her. So now that I'm you know I was like 22 or whatever 23 is like what the hell does she do that make you guys think she can beat me? Like either I'm just a terrible boxer or you guys just I don't know think she's that good. I think sometimes when someone's overwhelming like you are people try to pump up challengers in a way that they don't even really believe. You know what I mean? Like they kind of like I'm just gonna be honest. I've had to do that before doing commentary like pretend like there was certain dudes that I knew they were gonna fight an accomplished champion and you knew they were fucked and so you have to kind of play their strong points but if you caught me alone and it was just you and me and it was like no recording equipment. Like he's fucked but you can't necessarily say that because it's disrespectful to the opponent and because you want to kind of make it exciting. Yeah well I'm a hype man. You know that's what I'm trying to do. If John Jones is fighting someone and I think John Jones is gonna slaughter him I'm gonna point out the guy's strong points. I'll point out John's strong points and I'll point out the guy's strong points and what he has to do and what he can do and where he excels but sometimes they don't really believe that shit and with you I think the problem is they're always trying to sell fights right? But it's hard to sell when you, here's everybody else right? Here's you. You're way, you're so advanced in comparison like technique wise, ability wise, accomplishments wise. There's not a lot of competition for you in boxing where people are calling out for other than occasionally people start talking about Lea Lolly right? Occasionally that comes up. Well she's you know. She's retired. She's retired. She's probably 43. 43. Yeah. And this is the thing I don't respect about that right? I hate when somebody else try to take somebody else shine, somebody else attention. You know it's like she's you know nobody was trying to take her attention when it was her time and that's why I didn't like about hammering either. When I went in a world title fight why are you jumping in the ring talking about some you beat us both? You say congrats and get the fuck out the ring you know but she's getting there being disrespectful and then Lea Lolly gets upset because I become undisputed champion. She's never been undisputed and people are comparing me to her and she gets offended. When it was like to me I thought it was a good comparison because I feel like I boxed way better than her and for them to be saying that me and her are equal or whatever. She should have been happy because of that because they're giving her more more props on her skills which I feel like she didn't really have that much but you know whatever it was like I never really had a problem with it. And then all of a sudden it's like she's talking about she would knock me out and my record and this and that and I just was like hate her. That's all I kept thinking to myself. Hate her. And I would have loved to fight her but at the end of the day I'm an active fighter she's retired so when people bring her up like I don't want to have to keep saying that I beat her because I think it's evident but at the same time it's like look it was she had her time this is my time. They don't even correlate with each other. When was the last time she fought? Was it like 2016 or something? See if you can find Layla Ali's last professional boxing fight. You said 2016 you thinking real no. No? She's been retired like 13, 12 years. Has it been that long? Yeah like I think her last fight was 2001. Was it really? Probably. 2007. Wow I was way off. These 2012 months say what? 2007. I started boxing in 2006. I was like 11 years old when I started boxing so that mean I was 12. So basically she retired when she was like 30. Yeah which I took people all the time. I think that that kind of eats at her. She retired at 29, 30 in boxing when she was on top. You know and it was a lot of girls who wanted to fight her. She left without fighting Anne Wolf, left without fighting a girl named Love Tisha Robinson. It was a few girls who she didn't fight. Anne Wolf was the scariest in her day. Anne Wolf is still scary to me now. Remember she was training James Kirkland, screaming at him in the corner. She's a terrifying trainer. She's an amazing trainer. Terrifying trainer and terrifying boxer too. She has like in my opinion the most spectacular one punch knockout in the history of women's boxing. I said history of boxing. Like that punch there was like what the, I mean I dreamed to get a knockout like that. Like I thought my last fight I'm like that's my dream. I won Knock This Girl Out like Anne Wolf knocked out Monda Ward. That was my whole thing but it's like I feel for later that she retired kind of early. So everybody always compared whoever was next up to her. But it was like still you retired. Yeah. Nobody, nobody, it's nobody fought because you retired. Have you ever worked with Anne Wolf? No, I would love to though. Yeah, I would love to see that. Yeah, I think she just need to show me like how to sleep a girl. Yeah. Because I will. Here it is. Boom. Man, I'm talking about this girl. Oh my goodness. Time, time, power, everything. No, Anne Wolf was a monster. And it's really interesting like when she was training because you know her work ethic you could see it when she was training other fighters. Like she demanded like some serious work from them and she had so much intensity. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify including clips easily seamlessly switch between video and audio experience. On Spotify you can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data cost all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app. Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan Experience.