At the recent Claressa Shields vs. Maricela Cornejo World Boxing Federation (WBF) world Middleweight title fight in Detroit, Michigan, promoter Dmitriy Salita sat down with WBF President Howard Goldberg to discuss the potential of the American super-star defending her title in Africa next year. The discussion has since gained great momentum, and should such a fight come to fruition, it would, without comparison, be the biggest female boxing match in Africa of all time. “Dmitriy is a great guy and a complete go-getter. He is an outstanding promoter, and I appreciate the fact that he is going to continue to promote WBF title fights going forward”, said South African Goldberg. “So if he puts his mind to bringing Shields to Africa for a title-defense, I have no doubt he will accomplish just that. He and (Shields manager) Mark Taffet are an unstoppable force together.” Former WBF world champion and WBA world title-challenger Salita, who is considered one of the top promoters world-wide and was recently inducted into the New York State Boxing Hall of Fame, said: “Working with Howard and the WBF is an absolute pleasure. They are incredibly professional, and Howard is extremely knowledgable about the sport.” Claressa Shields, 14-0 (2), unquestionably one of the absolute best female fighters in the world pound-for-pound, won the WBF world Middleweight title in February of 2022 by defeating then champion Ema Kozin. She made her first defense with a land-slide decision over the aforementioned Cornejo last June.
