Maybe there won’t be a Joe Frazier for Claressa Shields’ Muhammad Ali.

It’s a recurring theme in the career of someone who is rapidly living up to her self-proclaimed status as the G.W.O.A.T. of her sport. As the saying goes, to be great, a fighter needs that dance partner to bring the great out of her. Most famously, Ali had Frazier, and while we likely would have been calling “The Greatest” just that without his three bouts against “Smokin’ Joe,” their trilogy enhanced what was already a stellar resume.

So the question was, who was going to be Shields’ most heated rival, the one fighter to take her to the brink repeatedly, only to see “T-Rex” dig deep and pull out the victory?

Savannah Marshall appeared to fit that role perfectly. The two were amateur rivals, that rivalry only got more heated as their pro careers progressed, and when they finally met again last October, they produced a classic in London, England.

That night, Shields had to adjust on the fly, take some hard shots to give some back, quiet a hostile crowd, and show off aspects of her game we had never seen yet. It was a brilliant performance in her biggest pro fight to date, but the prevailing feeling when it was over was that a rematch would just produce a wider margin of victory for the Flint, Michigan native.

No Frazier, but just as Shields predicted before the fight, Marshall was going to be her George Foreman.

“My George Foreman is over there in Savannah Marshall,” Shields told me last year. “I think every Ali needs a George Foreman. So I’m Ali and Savannah Marshall’s my George Foreman.

“I’m gonna smash Savannah Marshall up and after that she may yell for a rematch to get beat up again, but there’s not gonna be no rematches.”

And that’s that.

Marshall will face Franchon Crews-Dezurn on July 1, and Shields is keeping things moving as well, as she prepares to face Maricela Cornejo at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. It wasn’t the way things were supposed to be in the “Motor City” this Saturday, but when Hanna Gabriels was pulled from the bout due to an adverse finding on a recent VADA test, in stepped Cornejo.

Maybe Gabriels was going to be the Frazier, considering that she’s the only fighter to drop Shields as a pro, having done so in a 2018 bout still won by a wide margin by the current undisputed middleweight champion, but for now, that’s on hold.

Will it be Cornejo, who has come up short in three tries at a world crown? She’s a good fighter, but not likely. So, at this point, it may just be Shields against Shields until further notice.

“I had to switch my mindset up when Maricela Cornejo became the opponent,” said Shields. “She’s tall, she’s fresh and she’s fought for the world title before. This chance to fight for undisputed is once in a lifetime for her, so I’m excited to face an opponent who I know is ready to go.”

That focus may be Shields’ greatest attribute at this point in her career. Having done all there is to do as an amateur (two Olympic gold medals) and in three weight classes (154, 160, 168) as a pro, there is precious little to keep her motivated, even after just 13 pro fights. Add in the fact that she’s headlining an arena show in her home state and has been pulled in every different direction in terms of promoting the event, especially now, with a late change of opponent, and if there has ever been an opportunity for a challenger to come in and score an upset, it’s now. But again, the 28-year-old is refusing to get caught napping.

“I’m super excited to fight in front of thousands at Little Caesars Arena, but I’ve had to keep my head down and train,” Shields said. “I might put the makeup and hair and nice clothes on, but I’m not doing anything but focusing on the fight. This is a big moment for Detroit and myself, but the most important thing right now is just winning this fight.”

Again, Cornejo is a good fighter, but she’s not a “beat Claressa Shields” good. Yes, stranger things have happened and boxing is the theater of the unexpected, but odds are that Shields will leave the arena that night with all her belts intact.

But then what? Is her Frazier out there, or will she have to travel the road taken by Floyd Mayweather, an all-time great who never had that all-time great dance partner to produce a series for the ages? That’s a testament to him and what he was able to do in the ring, but there are some who hold it against him that there was no Ali-Frazier, Robinson-LaMotta or Marquez-Pacquiao series on his resume. That didn’t stop him from being a first ballot hall of famer, and it won’t stop Shields from being the same when she retires. And with Shields still a couple years short of 30, there’s still a chance for that rivalry to develop, whether it’s with Marshall, Gabriels, another former foe in Crews-Dezurn, or 154-pound champ Natasha Jonas. Then, maybe she’ll get her just due for what has been a remarkable career, thus far.

“If I was a man, I’d be the face of boxing,” she said recently. “I’ve got more accomplishments than everybody. I’m just gonna keep continuing to build myself and let the world accept me and women’s boxing.”

She’s right. Unfortunately. But maybe one day, that situation will change. Until then, Shields will keep on fighting.

“I’m from Flint, Michigan,” she said. “I want all the smoke. Whoever got the smoke, let’s go. Let’s fight.”

Boxer Claressa Shields has a seemingly endless list of accomplishments during her amateur and professional career. The Michigan native won the gold medal at the 2012 Olympics in London at the age of only 17, and repeated the feat at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, competing in the middleweight division.

As a professional, it’s easy to see why her nickname is the GWOAT (greatest woman of all time). Not only is she 14-0, but she is the only boxer, male or female, to be undisputed champion simultaneously in two weight divisions. Shields is also a pioneer in the sport for women, as she headlined the first women’s boxing main event on premium television when she defeated Szilvia Szabados in her second professional fight.

The Amsterdam News spoke exclusively with Dmitriy Salita, president of Salita Promotions, who has been the promoter of Shields since 2017, about what he saw in the young fighter that made him want to work with her, and the progression of her history-making career.

“I read that article and I read her story and I read about her incredible amateur boxing accomplishments and I said to myself, there’s no better fighter coming out of the 2016 Olympics than Claressa Shields,” he recalled. “Because [it] could be that there are great American fighters, but someone like Clarissa is historic.”

Salita also saw something in this country happening in 2016 that made him believe that signing Shields would be fruitful.

“2016 was the year that Hillary Clinton was running for president and the women’s empowerment movement was coming alive in a real significant way,” he said.

Salita also aimed to share the uniqueness of Shields earlier in her career.

“It’s all interconnected because boxing is about promoting and boxing is about storytelling,” he said. “HBO and Showtime are great networks, great networks that tell stories. And one of the things that I wanted to do was tell her story, tell her life story to make her appeal to boxing fans and more important then non boxing fans because true superstars in the sport can cross over.”

Shields is the recipient of a Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Sports Award and won a 2023 ESPY Award earlier this year for best boxer.

It’s easy to imagine how many young girls and boys watching Shields are so inspired by her.

Salita, whose fighters have appeared on ESPN, HBO, Showtime, Sky Sports, and DAZN, relishes his underdog role.

“I really had to build everything from scratch,” he said. “I’m very blessed to have had the eyes to identify top-tier talent very early in their career.”

Salita shares that his fighter Shohjahon Ergashev (23-0, 20 KOs) is in action on November 4 against IBF junior welterweight champion Subriel Matias (19-1, 19 KOs). Joshua Pagan (8-0, 4 KOs) will battle Braulio Rodriguez (20-7, 17 KOs) on October 21, and he looks for undefeated fighter Vladimir Shishkin (14-0, 8 KOs) to fight before the year’s end with an opponent to be announced soon.

Claressa Shields couldn’t have accomplished more than she has.

Two Olympic gold medals. World titles in two divisions. A 13-0 professional record, 10-0 in championship fights. One of the two or three faces of women’s boxing. She is already one of the best to ever do it.

Only one thing is missing: knockouts. Only two of her victories have come by stoppage, the latter of which came in her fourth fight, in 2017.

That continues to bother Shields as she prepares to face Hanna Gabriels in a rematch on June 3 at Little Ceasars Arena in Detroit.

And it serves as motivation. Boxing Junkie asked her whether it’s difficult to get up for her fights given her dominance over everyone she has faced as a professional.

“No, it’s not,” she said. “If I were knocking these girls out in the first or second round, it would be hard to get up. I went 10 rounds and dominate and in my mind … why can’t I knock her out? So for me that’s what gets me up.”

The question is: What will get her knockouts?

The two-minute rounds in women’s boxing don’t help. Women don’t have as much time to wear down their opponents. And, obviously, some fighters simply have more pop in their punches than others.

Shields figures that the KOs will come if she does the right things.

“We gotta figure out how to knock these girls out,” she said. “I already dominate them. So the next level is to KO them. I feel like all these men get knockouts [against inferior opposition] early in their careers.

“I’ve had only tough challenges, girls with more experience, girls who are stronger than me. … I’ve finally caught up to them in experience. I’m more comfortable sitting down on my punches.

“We want quality over quantity, digging the body shot, the good head movement, countering, explosiveness. Now we’re getting into that. I had been winning with pure talent.”

She has a little extra motivation against Gabriels (21-2-1, 12 KOs).

The Costa Rican is the only opponent to have ever put Shields on the canvas, turning the trick in the first round of their 2018 fight. Shields ended up winning a wide decision, proving that she was the superior fighter in spite of the early mishap.

Still, Gabriels, now 40, evidently believes she has the power to turn the tables in the rematch. For her part, Shields put the knockdown behind her years ago.

“It made me upset that night that it happened,” he said. “That was it. I’m not thinking about a knockdown five years later like she is. What else did you do? You lost. That’s what everybody else has done inside the ring with me, lose.”

Indeed, if stopping fights early has been a problem for Shields, winning certainly hasn’t. She hasn’t lost a fight since Savannah Marshall outpointed her when she was a 17-year-old amateur in 2012.

And winning supersedes everything else. It would just be nice to have an early finish once in a while.

“Honestly, I just ‘want to’ keep winning, keep getting better, knock these girls out, keep getting faster and stronger, and just continue having a great career,” Shields said. “There’s always somebody who’s up and coming, who wants a shot at world titles.

“I just want to stay ready for them and just fight the best. That’s all I can do right now.”