The truth is, the Claressa Shields story is ever-evolving.
Yes, she’s already collected an impressive array of accolades, including being one of only four boxers in history — regardless of gender — to have four major world titles in two weight classes. Plus, she has a pair of Olympic Gold medals, and — quite frankly — she’s the undisputed pound-for-pound greatest female boxer in the world, and perhaps of all time.
A resume like that certainly sounds like what one might read at someone’s retirement celebration, fêting them in front of a crowd of adoring fans, grandchildren, and a host of people there to celebrate what might feel like the culmination of a decades-long career.
But Shields is just 29. She trains at least twice a day. And about six weeks after the biopic about her life, The Fire Inside, hits theaters Christmas Day, she’ll enter the ring again for another fight.
Let that sink in.
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It’s almost difficult to talk about what exactly the Claressa Shields story is because, despite her accomplishments, it’s still unfolding. What you will find in The Fire Inside, penned by Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins and brought to life by actors Ryan Destiny and Brian Tyree Henry, is an ambitious origin story that shows the grimness of Flint, Michigan in the aftermath of the last Buick plant being yanked from the community. It’s an intimate look at a city that was also plagued by an international headline-grabbing water crisis akin to what we might see in a third world country.
As Shields, Ryan Destiny — also a native Michigander, who initially found fame in Lee Daniels’ musically-centered series Star — impressively captures the strength and vulnerability of the prize-fighter, which is a Herculean task within itself.
“I really wanted to make sure I got the physical down, but also the mental. She is a human with layers and it was very, very important for me to be able to execute that because you don’t start out that way,” said Destiny. “You don’t start out being this great ‘I know everything and I’m confident and I know I can do it’ type of person. You’re not born like that, you have things that grow you into that, as well as people that are surrounding you that talk life into you that help with that journey.”
Destiny’s hard work has already earned her an Independent Spirit lead actress nomination for the role. But most of all, she wanted to tell Shields’ story correctly.
“[This is] unfortunately another tale of someone who made history and it went completely under [the radar]and was an untold heroic story. I really wanted more than anything to be a part of art in this way and a film in this way,” she said. “Even though it was scary for me, I think that that excited me even more, because I knew it was going to take me to a place that I’ve never had to go.”
The film – much like Shields’ actual story – is unflinching and doesn’t gloss over some of the more painful things that happened to her in real life. Sexual assault as a little girl, unfathomable poverty, and a parent battling alcohol addiction hits you early in the film. Also especially painful for Shields, believe it or not, was the one and only loss she suffered as an amateur boxer.
Shields explained why she took it so hard, understanding that equating the very real and understandable hardships of life with losing a fight may be difficult for most to wrap their brains around.
Ryan Destiny (left) and Claressa Shields (right) attend the Los Angeles premiere of The Fire Inside at DGA Theater Complex on Dec. 4 in Los Angeles.
Stewart Cook/Amazon MGM Studios via Getty Images
“It was extremely hard to relive some of those moments, extremely hard to see … when we didn’t have food growing up, to remember when my mom was abusing alcohol, to me remembering when I had my first loss ever and my only loss in boxing in the amateurs. Sometimes when I’m watching that, I want to get up and walk out of the theater. It’s still triggering for me,” Shields said.
“I don’t think people understand when a sport is all that you have, you don’t have anything else. You don’t have the support system, you don’t have the great family, you don’t have the ideal thing of family. You don’t have none of that. And the only thing that I felt like loved me back was boxing, so to lose, it always still hurts the same,” she shared. “And then I didn’t know if I would make it to the Olympics, which meant I was going to be living in poverty forever if I didn’t make it.
“Boxing was all I had. So every time I see that, I remember … I was so scared. I was worried about my future. I didn’t know what I would do, and I’m just happy I didn’t get a silver medal because I wouldn’t even have wanted it. I watch it and I just be crying.”
There’s a delicious metaphor to be had here as well. A young girl is fighting to get inside of the ring because fighting may be her only way out of her reality. She’s basically fighting to fight so that she doesn’t have to fight anymore.
But yet, there’s another battle to be had. And as a young high schooler, fresh off of her first Olympic win, the film shares what will absolutely be new information to cinemagoers: Shields fighting for gender equity.
Much of The Fire Inside is a note-for-note pull from the 2015 documentary T-Rex, which told the story of how Shields became a boxing phenom at 17 and won an Olympic gold medal.
Even still, hers is still a largely unknown story.
Ryan Destiny (left) and Brian Tyree Henry (right) in The Fire Inside.
Amazon MGM
Brian Tyree Henry, who last year collected an Oscar-nomination to add to his growing list of impressive film and TV credits, plays her boxing trainer Jason Crutchfield, who actually became way more than a trainer. But he didn’t know much about Shields’ going in.
“There was no awareness of it,” Henry said about his own familiarity with Shields’ life. “And that, in and of itself, put a charge in me to absolutely attach myself to it. When I read it, I was quite pissed at myself for not knowing this story. And then I became pissed with society for not sharing it. I was like, ‘Well, where are the Wheaties boxes? Where are the Nike sponsorships? Where are the stories? Why did I have to dig to find this?’ And it upset me in a way that activated me truly. It made me want to dive deeper.”
Henry paused for before continuing.
“But it was also just crazy to know that it existed this way in this arena such as the Olympics, that we as a country always celebrate. That’s the one time we all are screaming, ‘USA! USA!’ No matter where we’re from. And it just was baffling to me that I didn’t know about it,” he said. “But the gratitude that came, knowing that Barry wrote this, to know that Claressa was willing to share this part of her life, let me know that I had to be a part of it to make sure that no one ever forgot it. Because I didn’t want it to fall by the wayside [like]it had when it came to me.”
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In a lot of ways, The Fire Inside feels as if it was just thought of days ago (it was in development for years, then suffered a years-long COVID-19 slowdown while in production). It’s incredibly timely, considering that the biggest headlines this last year in sports have been in celebration of women athletes — largely in the basketball world – while also showing the severe ongoing inequalities between genders in sports.
“Women’s boxing didn’t even exist back then,” Shields said of her advocacy to ensure that female boxers in the Olympic system were paid the same stipend as men. “So now that it exists, there has to be someone who comes [and says], ‘Pay us equal because we fight just as hard. Pay us equal. Pay us!’ It has to make sense. I would talk to the executives and I would tell them, ‘Hey, this is what I saw. I heard you guys said this, but this is what happened.’ And everybody was very understanding because I came with facts and also, I came in … [and]let them know, ‘I’m not here to tell you guys to do it or else, I’m just telling you it’s not right. It’s not equal and this is how it’s not equal and you guys need to change that.’ And I was one of the ones who was able to get things changed, [and]that’s why I was the first woman boxer to make a million dollars in boxing.”
But here’s what’s most important for Shields – and truly for any of the creatives who poured into this project: anyone consuming this film should focus on her resiliency. Don’t feel sorry for Shields or her struggles or the reality of the life around what you see in The Fire Inside.
Focus instead on the strength. On the tenacity. On the power. On the unwillingness to give up even when giving up feels like the only answer.
Because she didn’t. And she still isn’t.
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Shields’ fight is far from over. Even as she prepares to step into the ring on Feb. 2 versus Danielle Perkins in her beloved hometown for a headlining DAZN-streamed fight, Shields still has a long way to go and she’ll keep fighting for more equity and more rights.
But this moment – with a biopic about her life in theaters on Christmas Day before hitting Amazon Prime Video sometime next year — is about hope. And faith.
“Being able to give them hope and faith in places that they didn’t know that they had, to give them some motivation … I think the world lacks that,” Shields said. “Drama sells, all these bad stories sell. We have a story filled with trials, but we have so much triumph in The Fire Inside. I want people to leave knowing that I did it. If I was able to go through X, Y and Z …I want them to leave knowing that it’s possible for all of us.”
And, because she can’t resist herself, Shields also wants folks to know one more important thing.
“You can still can watch me fight now! You may have missed out back then,” she said, “because you didn’t know nothing about me – and I was great then! But you ain’t got to miss out now. Join the party!”
Kelley L. Carter is a senior entertainment reporter and the host of Another Act at Andscape. She can act out every episode of the U.S. version of The Office, she can and will sing the Michigan State University fight song on command and she is very much immune to Hollywood hotness.
