World Champion Boxer Claressa Shields on Transitioning to MMA

In a young life you have accomplished incredible things. Like for people that don't know, you won the Olympic gold medalist at 17 and then you won it again four years later. The only American boxer ever. I think like only another, like no boxer's ever done that right? In America. No, not from America, just me. I mean, you've gone multiple weight classes and now you're considering fighting an MMA. I mean, you kind of cleared out boxing in a lot of ways. It's always something more to be accomplished in boxing, but I'm venturing off into MMA because I really want to see in my, as great as I think I am and I think I am. So I'm excited to be fighting with the PFL later on this year and just taking it from there and see what happens. Well, I think when someone is as good as you are at boxing, you could basically do anything you want in life. You just have to put the same amount of focus that you put on boxing to whatever it is. Smart man. That you apply yourself to. Yeah. You know, rare human beings that can do what you've been able to do. It's a rare person. Five piece. Five piece? And that collaboration prevents poor performance. There you go. So in MMA, I'm not coming over like, Hey, I'm in boxing. I'm boxing all you girls up. It's like I'm at Jackson wing gym, you know, with coach Jackson. I've seen you kick back. I've seen you throw kicks. I was very impressed. I can't believe you're already that good. It's real. I was like, well, maybe you were throwing high kicks. Yeah. I didn't know my lady can go up that high today showing me the technique up and I was like, Whoa, this shit's insane. Do you stretch all the time? Are you a person who like when you were boxing, I mean, I know most athletes stretch, but having a full split is not really, it's not really required to punch people, but you obviously have very flexible legs. I've been doing yoga for the past few months. So I was able to kick high when I first went to Jackson wing gym in December. I was able to kick high, but not for very long. I probably would get two or three good high kicks. Now my yo, let's bring it down a level. Now from all the stretching, when they got that pad up there and they like kick it, I just do the form and my leg can go up there over and over and over again, just from the stretching and actually being a bit more flexible than what I was before. So I stretch, but I stretch more serious now. What brought you into yoga? Um, really it was the MMA fans, to be honest, they're like, you're going to have to stretch and you know, people are on there, you know, talking trash or whatever trolls, but they were saying like, I read a lot of comments and I'm like, they're like, you know, she's going to have a problem with kicking. She's not flexible. Her legs are big blah, blah. So I would read some of that stuff and do my own research. And I'm like, damn, they're right. So my goal for one of my new year's resolutions was to be able to do the splits by the end of the year. So I have a yoga teacher, um, and me and her go like up on, up on zoom twice a week and she's like having me do these stretches. And I'm like, girl, you is something else. Her name is the Keena. Have you done a hot yoga ever? No, not yet. I heard it's brutal though. It's more of a mental thing. It is brutal for sure. But one good thing about it is when you get that hot and sweaty, your muscles become really pliable and you can make really good gains that way. Like in terms of flexibility. Oh wow. Maybe I, maybe I should try it with the Keena. Yeah. I always find that I'm way more flexible in a hot yoga class than I am anywhere else. You can do the splits. Yeah, I can do the splits. Damn, you're ahead of me. I'm old. I started when I was 15, you know, you still do the splits. Your body is like jacked up. You should not be able to do this split. Oh, there's a guy who fights for one FC that makes me look like a twig. His name is Elaine Ngali. He's super jacked and he's one of the most flexible guys I've ever seen in my life. Insanely flexible, but flexible everywhere. His spine is flexible. He can, he can bend over backwards standing and touch the back of his, like his touch his palms to the ground and then flip his feet over the top. His Instagram's incredible because he's built like a superhero. See if you find his, uh, his Instagram, he's built like a super, I mean, like a freak of nature, but it's incredibly flexible. Wow. Yeah. He just puts a lot of time and dedication to flexibility. You can, it can be done. It's just, there it is. Look at him. I mean, come on. And when you see this guy, when you see this guy move and you see him fight, I mean, do the video one so you could see him. Oh, no, no, no. Go that one right there with the dude with the blue shorts right in front where he head kicks his dude. Watch this guy. I mean, you see his, his flexibility is incredible. But that's one thing about the kicks though. You really have to condition those shins for that. Oh yeah. Remember when I first started, I was like probably like five kicks in. I'm like, yeah, just the bad. Right. Yeah. Just the bag itself. Then when we went up to the pads, I'm like, coach, do you got softer pads? Serious. He's like, champ, these are my softest ones. I'm like, it takes a while. It takes a while. You see some people, they start whacking their shins with like a Coke bottles and stuff like that. Just trying to toughen them up. Yeah. They do all kinds of things. I can kick really hard now. There you are. Look at this. Seriously. Superman punches everything. Head kicks. The thing is some of this stuff I learned, I learned Superman punch that same day. So when he showed me at one time, we just start doing it and he was like, you're doing good. Like I can look at it now and tell you my mistakes right now, but I'm not going to say too much because I fixed them already. Sometimes when I throw like the head kicks, my kicks would, my hands would go down at the same time. How did you get to Jackson Winkle John? Because first of all, you couldn't have picked a better gym to train at the one of the best gyms in the world. But what brought you there? Um, actually, I've always had like, I believe in technique and training. People may look at me boxing, but oh, she just naturally fast. She naturally strong. He's like, no, I am strategically smart in boxing and I have a lot of skill. I may look like I'm a beast out there, but it takes a lot of skill to land those punches, bodywork, defense, which is, I probably got hit three times my last fight. Well, you went one of your fights. What was that woman from God? What was her name? Was your, what your first world title fight? She was a blonde lady. Nikki Adler. Yeah. She went a whole round without landing a single punch on you. Yeah. And I, I, I ended that fight in the fifth round. Yeah. You, anybody that doesn't think that you have technique just doesn't understand boxing. That's, that's like, oh, she's a woman. You can't respond to those people. You can't, they're weird. No, you clearly have superior technique. I agree. No. So for MMA, I was just like, I already had signed a contract with the PFL and now I'm like, okay, how, what do you have to do for the five P's to play in effect? And I was like, I need to get the best trainer. And I just remember like in 2016, me and Johnny bones, we were talking at the Esby's and he was like, yo, you'd be the perfect boxer to come over to MMA. And I was like, it's true. Cause you're really young. You wouldn't be 25 now. Yeah. I turned 26 in two days. Oh boy. Yeah. Super. Yeah. Well, an early happy birthday to you. Thank you. So that's a perfect age because you're, you still are capable of getting elite at all the arts. You're still, you could get elite at Brazilian jujitsu. You can get elite at striking with kicking and Muay Thai. You can, you mean you're young enough that you could do all that shit. Yeah. I think you're just all about like one having the right teachers and also getting in there and doing it. But I mean, having to, having a body to do it, like I'm glad that I didn't wait till I was like 35, you know, 36. Because then I would just be starting. It'll set me back and it'd be like, I'm going in here starting new and my body isn't even in his prime. Like right now, I don't think that my body has, has, has peaked yet. Like where I've been as strong as I can be as fast as I can be. I still think like I'm like right there. I just haven't, I haven't touched where I'm like, okay, this is the best my body can be at. I haven't, I haven't touched that yet. They think a pro athlete, your prime is somewhere between 28 and 32. I think they said, cause that's when your body lines up with your brain. I was hoping it was 26. Maybe it is 26. I was hoping. Tyson won the world title at 20. You know, it's like John Jones won the world title at 22. It's like you can, there's 23. There's John Jones, 22 or 23. He's the youngest ever UFC champion. I feel like he was 21. Am I true? No, no, he wasn't 21. He was either 22 or 23 because 23. Okay. Cause before that, I think it was Josh Barnett and he won the heavyweight title, I think it was 24, you know, but there's, it's, you know, it's, it's different for everybody. Like some people peak young and some people, they, as they get older, they get smarter, so they understand their body better. And so maybe their body doesn't quite work as well as it did when they were 24, but they're a better athlete at 30 or 32. Just cause they know what to do and how to do it better. They understand they have a better communication with their body. But that's like what you're doing by doing yoga and even by expanding into martial arts, that's the key. It's like keeping your body doing different things. And then you understand your body more, the more different stuff you do with it. So when did you start training in MMA? December. Just December. And how often are you doing it? Um, I was at Jackson wing gym three weeks at a time. So I'll be there three weeks, go home a week, come back three weeks, go home a week, come back three weeks. Um, I was doing that because I really just, I like to just have my time around my home, my family, my boyfriend. I don't like just training, training, training, training. Like I should've drive you crazy. So I'm like, I got leave. So now, uh, starting back and after my birthday in April, I'll be up in Jackson wing for three weeks, but I only go home weekend. So I'll be there three weeks and then go home for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, fly back Sunday, be there three weeks again until I have my actual fight. So is the plan to continue boxing as well as fighting in MMA? Yeah. The overall goal for me is to be champion in boxing and be a champion in MMA at the same time, once that's done, then I don't know what else I could possibly do like that would be like the end game for me, like that's it. So I know I can be champion in boxing, which is very easy to do because I'm already accomplished so much in boxing and the girls just can't fuck with me in boxing. Let's keep it real. But in the May catch new episodes, 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 costs all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. 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