Right now, we should all be talking about how Claressa “T-Rex” Shields became the fastest boxer to win world titles in three different weight classes. It would have been a fairy tale crowning in front of the champ’s hometown of Flint, Michigan.
Instead, all of boxing is gossipping about WTF happened at her weigh-in. Apparently, Shields opponent Ivana Habazin’s trainer James Ali Bashar got sucker-punched at the pre-fight festivities by an unidentified man. Ali Bashar, the protege of the late, great Emanuel Steward, ended up at the hospital from the mysterious attack. It was so brutal that the 71-year-old needed to go under the knife for emergency facial reconstructive surgery.
The fight was officially canceled, but Habazin let her verbal fists fly. The Croatian fighter believes the cheap-shot came from a member of Shield’s entourage and called her a “classless fighter” and her entourage “thugs.”
“I did not see what happened and am relying, like so many of you, on what I have heard,” Shields revealed in a public Facebook post that has since been deleted. “Despite the videos that are out, the actions that took place against Coach Ali was not right. I do not stand for that and do not in any way justify what happened no matter what he said! I stand with Coach Ali and Ivana Habazin and I also understand their stand on our fight.”
Shields, who at first sent out a since-deleted video Tweet calling out Ali Bashar for yelling obscenities at her family, also sent out a two-part Instagram post (see above) but turned the comments off.
Mark Taffet, Shields’ manager, provided a cover for his prizefighter in an interview with ABC-7 WXYZ Detroit. “Claressa was stepping on the scales before the weigh-in to check her weight,” Taffet recalled. “There may have been confusion about whether the real weigh-in was taking place. (Bashir) was trying to get close to the scales to verify Claressa’s actual weight, and then words were exchanged. It was horribly unfortunate, and regardless of whatever disagreements there are, there’s never a place for violence.”
While the internet ran rampant with rumors about who attacked Coach Ali, the two-time Olympic gold medalists addressed her future plans to “make history,” which at this point is still up in the air.
