Claressa Shields has furiously hit back at Arturs Ahmetovs after he leaked a video of himself flooring her in sparring.
The little-known Latvian boxer took to social media
to post the clip in response to the American world champion’s claim that he had removed the padding from his gloves before the session to ‘cheat’ and knock her down.
The spar took place back in 2018, prior to Shields’ fight with Hanna Gabriels.
She was famously knocked down in that bout, and has said these two knockdowns within a short timespan are the only times she has ever touched the canvas.
Ahmetovs captioned the clip: “It’s nice that you remember me @ClaressaShields.
“If you think that I dishonoured you, as an honest person I’m ready to merry.”
And his coach Derik Santos commented: “She is full of s***, they asked for help to spar why would we want to spar a women?
“No-one took padding out of the gloves. After she was accusing of this the gloves were handed to her coach.
“But more importantly she sparred two rounds prior where Artur was instructed not to hit her hard, while he was working with her she started talking mad s*** at him and fouling him to point she tripped him.
“In the break he said, ‘What is going on here? We are trying to help, she is a woman.’
“What was replied was, ‘Well, punch her back, she is a big girl, multi-time champ.’
“He even tried to help her up, nobody wanted that to happen. This also happened years ago and obviously the video was kept never seen.
“Even through all the comments [where she said] she would beat a [male boxer], nothing was said derogatory towards her or spoken of this moment.
“Now she went to talking and he posted it. Now this is going to go around.
“Was it him? Or did she do it to herself? Years now. Even her coach said you had your chin up and got caught smh.”
Shields blasted back: “You know damn well the gloves didn’t have padding’ Harold Calderon said the same thing!
“You went to hide the gloves in you bag! I checked them because I was puzzled on how I got dropped! I’ve never been dropped! So you a damn liar and cheat!
“John David Jackson and Harold Calderon both checked the gloves and it was no padding! You are a cheat!”
Shields also took to social media herself and added: “I’ve never been KO’d in 17 years and I’ve been dropped two times, all in a week of each other. I have no shame in that.
“But for a male fighter to literally take the padding out his gloves, he’s a punk. Him and coach Derrick Santos are bad for the sport!”
