A biography for Claressa Shieldshasn’t been written yet.
“I consider my diet more of a life plan in general, and I have my days where I'll splurge, but I stay disciplined.”
“Kids in Flint don't even know that you can write to express your feelings and go to the gym and work out, you can run, you can do whatever you love to help relieve stress.”
“You got to adjust to how your life is.”
“My dad would tell me stories about when he was an underground fighter. One day when I was 11, he told me he wished he had a son who could have been a real boxer.”
“Fighting against undefeated IBF 154-pound champion Marie-Eve Dicaire continues my quest to fight the very best in women's boxing.”
“The biggest motivation for me is becoming a three-division world champion faster than any other boxer, male or female.”
“I still really haven't sat down and said 'yeah, I'm ranked No. 1 in the world and I'm an Olympic Gold Medalist.' It just hasn't hit me.”
“At the Olympics, for those eight minutes of each fight, all that attention was on me. Either the crowd is with you or against you.”
“I've always had heart to get in there and fight. I was taught everything I knew. I was taught how to jab, why to do this, and why not to do that. I was taught that.”
“I have a world championship medal from 2014, but I can't find it. So I'm missing one. I think it's at my sister's house. I have to find it.”
“I got the nickname T-Rex when I was 11 years old. Back when I was younger, I was very skinny and I had short arms, but I used to always be swinging.”
“I tell all kids and the girls growing up that you control your own life, you control your destiny - not where you're born, not who your parents are.”
“To be honest, I already felt that I was going to win the gold medal, but with school being so hard I was kind of second-guessing myself. So, when I actually was told that I was going to be able to walk across the stage and be done with high school, it was such a relief.”
“Everybody kept saying I wasn't going to get any fights. And they wouldn't put me on TV and they don't respect women's boxing. But I also turned professional with two Olympic gold medals and that's something that no other American boxer has ever done. With that, I've been getting a lot of respect.”
“Coming back to Flint and seeing my family keeps me humble. Even though I've been on a worldwide stage, I can still communicate with them on a hood level, if that's what you want to call it.”
“At the end of the day, no matter what you do, there will be somebody that don't like you. You don't have to like me, but you will respect what I do.”
“But now in open division, I get to fight a lot more. I actually like that.”
“I just love boxing. Train to get there and to just fight somebody.”
“A woman can beat me the day I stop working hard. I work so hard in the gym, it would be stupid of me to doubt myself. For me, I know that I'm unbeatable. You can put me in there with whoever.”
“The only thing that me and Muhammad Ali have in common is that we are both Olympic gold medalists and both very outspoken.”