Middleweight champ Savannah Marshall will face Femke Hermans on Saturday in a prelude to a showdown with Claressa Shields.
Savannah Marshall (11-0, 9 KOs) vs. Femke Hermans (12-3, 5 KOs)
- Date: Saturday, April 2
- Time: 3 p.m. ET / noon PT (main event later in show)
- Where: Utilita Arena, Newcastle, England
- TV/Stream: No TV in U.S. (Sky Sports in U.K.)
- Division: Middleweight (160 pounds)
- Rounds: 10
- At stake: Marshall’s WBO title
- Pound-for-pound ranking: None
- Odds: NA
- Also on the card: Florian Marku vs. Chris Jenkins, welterweights; Nathan Gorman vs. Scott Alexander, heavyweights
- Prediction: Marshall UD
- Background: For Marshall, this fight probably is a prelude to a unification showdown with three-belt titleholder Claressa Shields. The Newcastle-area fighter won the vacant WBO 160-pound title by stopping Hannah Rankin in October 2020 and has successfully defended twice, knocking out both Maria Lindberg in April of last year and Lolita Muzeya in October. The two-time Olympian has seven consecutive stoppages, which is unusual because of the two-minute rounds in women’s boxing. If she wins on Saturday, she and Shields are expected to fight one another before the end of the year. Marshall defeated a young Shields in the 2012 World Championships, the American’s only setback as an amateur or pro. The two exchanged words after Shield’s unanimous-decision victory over Emz Kozin on Feb. 5. Hermans had a short reign as a super middleweight titleholder but has not fared as well at middleweight, including wide-decision losses against Alicia Napoleon Espinosa and Shields in title fights. The Belgian fighter has won her last three bouts, including a third-round knockout of novice Lili Jumali last July in Brussels.