Savannah Marshall sets the stage for era-defining grudge fight and undisputed champion tag

Savannah Marshall is changing the boxing game for women one fight at a time.

On Saturday night in Newcastle, she needed one round to measure, one round to weaken and just 2.59 of the third round to knock out Femke Hermans.

It was a clean, one-punch knockout and Hermans landed on her back with a heavy splat, her left foot still trapped under her body. The foot sprung free, the referee never bothered with a count and Marshall was grinning. Marshall retained her WBO middleweight title; it was her third defence and they have all ended quickly and brutally.

Hermans is a former world champion, a leading contender and had never previously been stopped. She was the underdog, but she is tough, awkward and has a good chin. The end was shocking.

Marshall has now stopped or knocked out ten of the 12 women she has beaten. There is nobody in the modern game delivering the same threat and doing it against the very best available contenders. She is picking her finishes, moving with a quiet determination and guile that the pioneers from the Nineties never had; she is not swinging wild against a hapless former gymnast or waitress or cheerleader like the big names too often did back then. Marshall is a very different beast.

Hermans tried to stay mobile, tried to counter, tried to roll, but Marshall slowly closed the gap, forced the Belgian back and forced Hermans to panic; Hermans was trapped in a corner when the short left hook connected flush on her chin and she was out cold as she dropped.

It is a savage business, the boxing business, and as Hermans was recovering and satisfying the medical team in the ring that she was fine, Marshall was plotting her inevitable next fight. The stage, as they say, was set.

At ringside in the very front row was Claressa Shields, the American double Olympic champion, three-weight world champion and self-proclaimed greatest female fighter of all time. Shields is unbeaten as a professional in 12 fights and only ever lost once in her amazing amateur career: She was beaten in 2012 by Marshall. The pair are now set to fight in the late summer. They are not friends and never will be friends.

“I told the daft cow that she was next,” Marshall said when asked what she had shouted from the ring to Shields at the end of the fight. That is a true Hartlepool girl giving you the facts.

Shields was increasingly and wonderfully agitated at ringside and finally was allowed in the ring for a verbal face-off. Marshall laughed, Shields ranted and the crowd got a bit of early panto. And they loved it. Shields was very angry.

“She can’t hit me like she is hitting these girls – she must be crazy if she thinks she can do that to me,” Shields said.

In 2018, Hermans went the full ten rounds with Shields, staying on her feet and losing on points.

In 2020, when she won the title, Marshall dropped and stopped Hannah Rankin in seven; Rankin had also gone ten rounds with Shields. It’s boxing and simple comparisons are not an exact science, but they still remain a sensible guide. Shields, incidentally, has only stopped two of her twelve opponents as a professional, but she has lost just a round or two in all her fights.

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When they meet, which could be in Newcastle, it looks like it will be puncher against boxer, but don’t be fooled by the raw numbers. Shields is tough, she is old-fashioned hard with a difficult and grim history. Marshall is essentially a tall, rangy boxer who just happens to be able to take a woman out with just one punch.

Two unbeaten world champions fighting to be called undisputed – the long-ago amateur loss just adds a bit of extra history.

“She is a good talker and I respect everything she has achieved,” Marshall said. “I’m just sick and tired of listening.”

At some point in the summer the talking will stop and the fighting will start.

No panto, no promises, just punches. Marshall will be in her element. What a fight.