Savannah Marshall is back. After a detour in MMA, the former undisputed boxing champion is trading the confines of a cage for more familiar, roped surroundings.
If the boxing ring is the place, perhaps twilight is the time; Marshall is 34 now, and has done it all as an Olympian, two-weight world champion, undisputed title holder, and headliner of Britain’s first-ever all-female boxing card. At that event in 2022, she fought at a packed O2 Arena, and in July, she can tick off New York City’s iconic Madison Square Garden – to go along with past adventures in Las Vegas and at York Hall.
After competing and winning under mixed martial arts rules last July, Marshall’s title fight with Shadasia Green at MSG will mark her first boxing outing since July 2023. On that occasion, the Hartlepool boxer gained undisputed status at super-middleweight, outpointing Franchon Crews Dezurn to add to her previous success at middleweight. When she faces Green, Marshall can reclaim one of the belts she lost during her absence from the sport: the WBO title.
“I was a little bit annoyed that I got stripped,” the IBF champion tells The Independent, saying two-time undisputed status is her main motivation in what could be the final chapter of her career. “Let me get all my belts back, then maybe I’ll get that fulfilment that I’ve been chasing for the 23 years I’ve been boxing!”
One senses that, for Marshall, true fulfilment would come in avenging her sole professional loss, her defeat by Claressa Shields at the O2. With an amateur win over Shields to her name, Marshall remains the only boxer to have beaten the American, but the Briton craves one more victory over her rival.
However, “I am actually in doubt, for the first time ever, that I will get that,” she admits. “I’ve waited two-and-a-half years, switched to MMA and signed with the PFL because she was with them, so… Look, maybe that’s not ever gonna happen for me.”
Indeed, Marshall hoped that chasing Shields into MMA might lead to the rematch she desired, but it did not. The foray was not fruitless, though.
Marshall says her biggest takeaway from her MMA endeavour is enhanced strength. “I feel 10-times stronger,” she explains, “and I think that’s down to the wrestling and jiu-jitsu. They beat any form of strength and conditioning. Even though I’m 34, and you’d think I’d have matured a lot sooner, my body has just transformed and thickened up.”
Yet there have been challenges in readjusting to her preferred sport. “You have to be very square on in boxing, so everything that benefited me in boxing did not benefit me at all in MMA,” she says. “I had 18 months of totally changing my style, and now I’ve come back to boxing… even at the start of the year, I was finding it hard. I was coming in very side on. Thankfully muscle memory kicked in, and I’ve gone back to how I used to box; I’m getting my feet right. Eighteen months to get there, four to get back.”
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In that sense, there might have been a silver lining in Marshall not fighting at March’s all-female sequel at the Royal Albert Hall, where Boxxer followed up on its 2022 event from the O2. Marshall expressed frustration at being announced for the Albert card only to be left out, but reflects: “It’s just unfortunate. These things happen, relationships end, we don’t all get what we want.”
Now, Marshall is focusing on the positives. While she admits a return in March would have likely been “more suited to me, so the opponent wouldn’t have been of [Green’s] calibre”, she has ended up with more time to hone her old style. Furthermore, her return will come in front of a global audience on Netflix, under Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP).
Marshall is one of numerous high-profile women’s boxers to have signed with the company, and her fight with Green will serve as an appetiser for Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano 3, on an all-female bill. Taylor vs Serrano 1 also took place at MSG, while their rematch on the Paul vs Mike Tyson undercard was reportedly the most-watched women’s sporting event ever.
“I think it’s unbelievable,” Marshall effuses. “I can’t believe promoters have never really cottoned on to: ‘Female boxing sells, why don’t we sign a load of female boxers, some of the best in the world, and put them all on one platform?’ It’s mad to think it’s taken Jake Paul, who essentially is a YouTube influencer… but what a businessman. Boxing is his passion, he’s seen an opening in the market, and he’s capitalised.”
Boxxer, of course, has highlighted women’s boxing, but MVP seeks to take the ball and run with it.
“I haven’t had a conversation with Jake, it’s all been through his team, through Nakisa [Bidarian],” Marshall continues. “Jake’s got a great team, and MVP have got the Netflix platform, whose viewing figures blow Sky, TNT, Amazon out of the water. The likes of [promoters] Eddie [Hearn], Frank [Warren], Bob Arum, they don’t have that platform. Jake has it, and he’s pushing female sport. Fair play to him, because not a lot of promoters – especially in the UK – push female fighters like he is.”
A great, big push for women’s boxing, and one last push by Savannah Marshall.
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