A Claressa Shields vs. Cris Cyborg fight is nowhere near close to happening, despite a $2 million dollar offer on the table from Team Cyborg.
The 41-year-old Cyborg has said 2026 is her final year in combat sports, and she’s doing her best to end her career on some big fights. That’s tough because not a lot of name fighters want to step into the cage or ring with her. Ronda Rousey ducked her. Kayla Harrison ducked her. She was never able to secure a rematch with Amanda Nunes. And now in boxing, she can’t secure a fight against top name Claressa Shields.
Cyborg went so far as to offer up $2 million of her own money to make a fight happen, but Shields made it clear on a recent appearance on the Ariel Helwani show that Cris is short $8 million dollars and a whole lotta respect.
“What a bum. What a bum, talking about she’s offering me $2 million a fight,” Shields declared. “She ain’t there. She can’t even pay herself $2 million. Talking about she’s offering me $2 million. Cris Cyborg can’t box. I don’t know why she’s on this ‘I don’t wanna fight’ … But when I made you the offer to fight at 154, you were like, ‘Come down to 147 and wear Adams gloves’ and all this other bullcrap.”
Claressa then took things back to an infamous 2018 sparring match, which she says she dominated. Footage from the spar that ended up online tells a different tale, but Shields claims that was ‘doctored.’
“When I sparred against Chris, we were supposed to spar six rounds,” Shields recalled. “We sparred four. I beat the s–t out of her. Like, literally. And I wasn’t even trying. I didn’t have a mouthpiece or nothing. I had on some Nike shoes, no boxing shoes, a mouthpiece, and I don’t know who’s headgear I had on. I was coming down down there to show her some boxing stuff, but she was like, ‘Oh, you wanna get in the ring and spar?’ I said ‘I’ll spar with anybody.’”
“I’m like, ‘How many rounds?’ They said six,” she continued. “I didn’t even have a coach or nothing. Then I kicked her ass. And then after, she quit at four rounds. She quit. And then after the four rounds, they begged me and asked me, ‘Hey, can we doctor up a video and put it online and make it look real competitive?’ Back then, I was like, ‘I don’t give a s–t,’ because it doesn’t matter if you make it look competitive or not. I know what I did in here. I know how I did you in that ring.”
“She was like a deer in headlights the fourth round. She was down there begging me not to knock her out, not to stop her. We were supposed to go six rounds, she went four. So now this fake narrative, oh, they putting this video back out there. ‘Oh, it was a close match. It went back and forth, and she’s strong.’ And it was like, girl, I can fight you with one hand and beat the dog s–t out of you. Stop playing.”
Nearly a decade later and Cyborg is now 6-0 in boxing with 5 KOs and a WIBA World Super Welter belt around her waist. She’s spoiling for a fight with Shields, undoubtedly one of the top names in women’s boxing. But Shields is completely uninterested.
“Cris, no,” Shields said. “Like, I don’t know why these girls play with me. It’s like, play with somebody else. Like, go and play with your children or something. Like, you don’t play with a grown woman. I will see you and walk up to you. I’ve done that to Cris. And she was like, ‘Why do you wanna fight me for? You don’t have no experience.’ Now you [say], ‘Clarissa, I got $2 million and I’ll knock you out.’”
“First of all, I make more than $2 million. Second of all, you can’t even pay yourself $2 million. She make posts on Twitter, and she’s trolling me. Three people liked the shit. Four people liked it. It’s like, bro, whatever clout you thought you had, it died down. And if you thought Amanda Nunes touched your chin, I’m definitely gonna touch you. Definitely. It’s like, who is Cris and what is she?”
“If somebody came with, ‘Hey, Clarissa. We got $10 million for you to get in there and knock out Cris Cyborg,’ I would do it just for fun,” she concluded. “But it was like, Cris, for me to give you an opportunity after all your disrespect? Girl can kiss my ass and happily retire in MMA and stop saying my name. Like, she say my name for attention. It’s weird.”
Cyborg took to X (formerly Twitter) shortly after to respond to Shields.
“There’s 1,000 ways to say no to a fight but only 1 way to say yes,” Cyborg said with pen and contract emojis. “August she’s fighting 160 and I’m fighting 145. We could both agree to 154 end of they year.”
It would be amazing to see Cris Cyborg and Claressa Shields throw down, and hopefully some promotion closes the $8 million gap to make it happen. But in some ways it would be a very fitting end for Cris Cyborg’s career that yet another top name in combat sports refuses to fight her. That’s largely been the story of her career. Why would it change now?
