Joe Rogan Experience #1619 - Claressa Shields

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast.…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Welcome. What's happening? How are you?

   2. CSClaressa Shields0:16

      I'm good. How are you, Joe?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Wonderful. It's a pleasure to get to meet you and to have you on here. I'm a big fan.

   4. CSClaressa Shields0:21

      Thank you.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      You, uh, in a young life, you have accomplished incredible things.

   6. CSClaressa Shields0:28

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:28

      Like, for people that don't know, you won an Olympic gold medal at 17.

   8. CSClaressa Shields0:32

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:32

      And then you won it again four years later.

   10. CSClaressa Shields0:34

       Yep. Two-time Olympic gold medalist.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       The only American boxer ever.

   12. CSClaressa Shields0:38

       Yes.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       I think, like, only another sp-... Like, no boxer's ever done that, right, in America?

   14. CSClaressa Shields0:42

       No, just... No, not from America. Just me.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       And, uh, I mean, you've gone multiple weight classes, and now you're considering fighting in MMA. I mean, you, you kind of cleared out boxing in a lot of ways.

   16. CSClaressa Shields0:57

       It's always something more to be accomplished-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00

       Yeah.

   18. CSClaressa Shields1:00

       ... in boxing. But I'm venturing off into MMA because I really wanna see, "Am I as great as I think I am?" And I think I am, so I'm excited to be fighting with the PFL later on this year and just, um, taking it from there and seeing what happens.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Well, I think, uh, when someone is as good as you are at boxing, you could basically do anything you want in life.

   20. CSClaressa Shields1:22

       Mm-hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:23

       You just have to put the same amount of focus that you put on boxing to whatever it is-

   22. CSClaressa Shields1:28

       Smart man.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:28

       ... that you apply yourself to.

   24. CSClaressa Shields1:30

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:30

       You know? There's rare human beings that can do what you've been able to do. It's a rare person.

   26. CSClaressa Shields1:35

       Five Ps.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:36

       Five Ps?

   28. CSClaressa Shields1:36

       Proper preparation prevents poor performance.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:39

       There you go.

   30. CSClaressa Shields1:39

       So in MMA, I'm not coming over like, "Hey, I'm in boxing. I'm gonna box all you girls up." It's like, "I'm at Jackson Wing Gym, you know, with Coach Jackson, Coach Wing. I'm training."
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah, when was the…

   1. CSClaressa Shields15:00

      getting there being disrespectful. And then Laila gets upset because I've become undisputed champion. She's never been undisputed. And people are comparing me to her and she gets offended. When it was like, to me, I thought it was a good comparison because I feel like I boxed way better than her. And for them to be saying that me and her are equal or whatever, she should've been happy because of that, because they're giving her more, um, more props on her skills, which I feel like she didn't really have that much. But, you know, whatever. It was like, I never really had a problem with it and then all of a sudden it's like, it's like, well, she'll knock me out and my record and this and that. And I just was like, "Hater." That's all I kept thinking to myself. Hater. And I would've loved to fight her, but, um, at the end of the day, I'm an active fighter. She's retired. So when people bring her up, like, I don't want to have to keep saying that I beat her, because I think it's evident, but at the same time it's like, look, it was, she had her time. This is my time. They don't even correlate with each other.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:58

      Yeah, when was the last time she fought? Was it like-

   3. CSClaressa Shields16:01

      I don't know.

   4. JRJoe Rogan16:01

      ... 2016 or something? See if you can find Laila Ali's last professional boxing fight.

   5. CSClaressa Shields16:06

      You said 2016. You thinking real, no.

   6. JRJoe Rogan16:09

      No?

   7. CSClaressa Shields16:09

      She's been retired for like 13, 12 years.

   8. JRJoe Rogan16:11

      Has it been that long?

   9. CSClaressa Shields16:12

      Yeah. Like, I think her last fight was 2001.

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:15

       Was it really?

   11. CSClaressa Shields16:16

       Probably.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:16

       2007. Wow. I was way off.

   13. CSClaressa Shields16:19

       At least 2012, I'd say. What? I think-

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:21

       2007.

   15. CSClaressa Shields16:22

       I started boxing in 2006. I was like 11 years old-

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:25

       Hmm.

   17. CSClaressa Shields16:25

       ... when I started boxing. So that mean I was 12.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:28

       So basically she, she retired when she was like 30.

   19. CSClaressa Shields16:31

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:31

       Yeah.

   21. CSClaressa Shields16:31

       Which, I tell people all the time, I think that that kind of eats at her. You know, she retired at 29, 30 in boxing when she was on top, you know, and there were a lot of girls who wanted to fight her. She left without fighting Anne Wolf, left without fighting a girl named La- Laticia Robinson. It was a few girls who she didn't fight.

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:51

       Anne Wolf was the scariest in her day.

   23. CSClaressa Shields16:53

       And Wolf is still scary to me now. (laughs) I mean-

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:55

       She's still scary. (laughs) Remember she was training-

   25. CSClaressa Shields16:56

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:56

       ... James Kirkland, screaming at him in the corner. She's a terrifying trainer. She's an amazing trainer.

   27. CSClaressa Shields17:01

       Terrifying trainer and terrifying boxer too.

   28. JRJoe Rogan17:03

       Yeah. She has like, in my opinion, the most, uh, spectacular one-punch knockout in the history of women's boxing.

   29. CSClaressa Shields17:09

       I said history of boxing.

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:12

       (laughs)
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   (sighs) …

   1. CSClaressa Shields30:00

      old, I told him I'll never talk to him again, I don't like him, I hate him, and this is what... me 11 years old. And for the next few months, whenever I seen him, we went over his house, it was the holidays, I'm like ... He just seemed like ... It really messed up our relationship for a few months, and I was 11 years old. So my dad never hit me with a belt again, and this is 'cause my sister broke a broom on me (laughs) . Me and my sister were fighting, she grabbed a broom, hit me with the broom, it broke, and of course I beat her up, but my mom called my dad and like, "They over here fighting and this their second broom of them that done broke in a week." So my dad comes over there, it's actually my 11th birthday, yeah, and he brings me a pencil, "Happy birthday. You got a pencil." And my mom says, "They broke another broom."

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:44

      (sighs)

   3. CSClaressa Shields30:44

      So my dad like, "Y'all over here breaking brooms," and I'm explaining to him like, "No, she broke the broom on me. I didn't break the broom." My dad whoops both of us.... and I was just highly upset. And I didn't... I mean, for the next couple of months, I just was like, "I don't fuck with you, bro." (laughs) So-

   4. JRJoe Rogan31:03

      Mm. Oh. He's lucky it only lasted a couple of months.

   5. CSClaressa Shields31:05

      No. So when... So when I'm talking about fighters, right?

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:07

      Yeah.

   7. CSClaressa Shields31:08

      You have to learn the kind of fighters... Like, I'm not the fighter who you have to yell and scream at to get something done. Like, I'll get up by myself at 8:00 in the morning and go run. I'll do all the... I, I, I'll work out. I'll show up at the gym on time. You don't have to scream and yell at me to get your point across. Talk. Let's have some communication. I always hated being yelled at. But my first boxing coach, Jason, sometime... It was so many of us at the gym, he just applied the same thing to all of us, but he never really yelled at me though. And then when I got older, he wanted to apply that kind of communication toward me and that's why we ended up not working together no more, 'cause it was like, I'm grown, I'm 18, you're not about to be yelling at me and trying to embarrass me in front of the gym and stuff like that. Like, I, I... He was like a father to me, so it was like, you got something to say to me, me and you can talk. Like don't air my business out in front of the whole gym.

   8. JRJoe Rogan32:00

      Right.

   9. CSClaressa Shields32:01

      And so... But that's what he was used to doing to everybody over the years and I just think that... I don't know, when I got older, he just was like, "I'm just going to communicate with everybody on the same level," and he thought that it would, it would kinda be easier for him, I guess.

   10. JRJoe Rogan32:14

       Right.

   11. CSClaressa Shields32:14

       But it's like a different communication that we had between each other, so I didn't like it.

   12. JRJoe Rogan32:18

       Yeah. That's what I'm talking about, that one-size-fits-all philosophy. And I-

   13. CSClaressa Shields32:21

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       I like what you said that it is like your children.

   15. CSClaressa Shields32:23

       It is.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:23

       Every child is different. Yeah. When you... When you set up a fight, like if a fight is set up for you and you have, uh, you know, eight, 12 weeks, whatever you need, are you organizing your schedule? Are you doing your strength and condi-... Are you organizing everything or do you have someone who does all that stuff for you? I know-

   17. CSClaressa Shields32:40

       I do all that myself.

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:41

       You do all of it?

   19. CSClaressa Shields32:42

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:42

       Yeah.

   21. CSClaressa Shields32:43

       I've always done all of it. I think now, at the time of my career, like, I really need an entourage, for real.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:48

       (laughs)

   23. CSClaressa Shields32:48

       I mean, I need an entourage.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:49

       What kind of entourage you need?

   25. CSClaressa Shields32:51

       I mean, I need a person... Okay, a person to keep me entertained. A person to watch my-

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:54

       You need a per-... Like a jester? (laughs)

   27. CSClaressa Shields32:56

       A little bit. (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:57

       (laughs)

   29. CSClaressa Shields32:57

       I need somebody to, you know, wash my clothes for me, get my bag together.

   30. JRJoe Rogan33:01

       Right.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. CSClaressa Shields45:00

      And Lucia Rijker, who people still don't know.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:02

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CSClaressa Shields45:02

      But I feel like if they would put the, put the backing behind women's boxing to where there was a lot of good girls who were good, but never got that TV exposure. I mean, we're talking about Kalisha West. You probably never heard of her, but she was a hell of a fighter. Um, so many, uh, let me ... La- La- Laticha Robinson. Right now, we got Amanda Serrano, but Amanda Serrano been around for a lot of years. Just now starting to get her, you know, starting to get her popularity up. Heather Hardy, myself, Katie Taylor. Cecilia been around for a long time, Cecilia Braekhus, but people still don't know her in America.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:41

      But that's what I'm saying.

   5. CSClaressa Shields45:42

      Right, but we weren't given the opportunity early on to where if we would've fought on TV on every man's card have a woman undercard or something-

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:49

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CSClaressa Shields45:49

      ... w- women's boxing would be a lot bigger. So even though people, you know, look at me like, "Oh, you're the biggest women's boxing star that they, that they have," I had the Olympics. And not on Professional, I had Showtime. I fought on The Zone, I fought on HBO. I've had all these different opportunities to be in front of so many different eyeballs to where now ... And I also do other stuff outside of boxing that other wo- uh, women fighters just not gonna do. Like I go to m- I go to MMA fights, you know, and I sit ringside, I watch. Um, I called out Amanda Nunes to a boxing match. I mean, shit like that that women fighters just don't feel like they need to do or that they wanna do because it's not looked at as ladylike.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:29

      Hmm.

   9. CSClaressa Shields46:29

      You know, talking trash is not ladylike. Being, being confident is not ladylike. That's what they say. I'm one of the most known female fighters because I do that. And I'm confident, not on accident, but on purpose. Like, that's who I am. But when other women did it, they were told to, "Oh, calm down. Be nicer." Even at the beginning of my career, I had a agent who told me, "Can we find a, can we find a happy medium?" And I'm like-

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:56

       (laughs)

   11. CSClaressa Shields46:56

       ... "What the hell you talking about?" And it was like my opponent was disrespectful to me, the girl I knocked out in the fifth round-

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:01

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CSClaressa Shields47:01

       ... Nikki Adler. She said she didn't even watch film of me before she came to America to fight me. She said she coming to defend her title, title and go back home. So it was like, hold on.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:09

       Probably should've watched some film.

   15. CSClaressa Shields47:11

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:11

       (laughs)

   17. CSClaressa Shields47:11

       You should have. But she came out there and it was like, to me, it was like, I done won the Olympics twice. And now I'm 4 and 0 getting ready to fight against you for a world title, 3 and 0. And you telling me that you didn't watch no film. I, I felt super disrespected. So they wanted me to be all nice to her. And I kept telling them like, "No, I'm fucking her up." I don't like-

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:30

       (laughs)

   19. CSClaressa Shields47:30

       I don't care. Like she gotta pay for disrespecting me.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:34

       I agree with everything you said, everything. But w- what I'm saying though, you've actually kind of proven my point.

   21. CSClaressa Shields47:40

       What?

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:40

       That just there's-

   23. CSClaressa Shields47:41

       Being the most highest?

   24. JRJoe Rogan47:41

       ... there's not that many high profile women fighters.

   25. CSClaressa Shields47:45

       Well, maybe I was saying-

   26. JRJoe Rogan47:46

       So-

   27. CSClaressa Shields47:46

       ... it's not that many high profile fighters, but it was a lot of great women fighters-

   28. JRJoe Rogan47:50

       Yes.

   29. CSClaressa Shields47:50

       ... which is-

   30. JRJoe Rogan47:50

       No, I'm sure.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:07:44

   Well, you've been successful…

   1. CSClaressa Shields1:00:00

      and just make the best out of it." But I would love to just focus on fighting though, but that's just not the way that the world is set up for me.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:08

      Well, you've been successful focusing on, in everything, so.

   3. CSClaressa Shields1:00:11

      Yeah, the-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

      I mean.

   5. CSClaressa Shields1:00:11

      See, the fights are easy, but I still need-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

      Yeah.

   7. CSClaressa Shields1:00:13

      ... me some money.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:14

      (laughs) The fights are easy, but I still need me some money.

   9. CSClaressa Shields1:00:15

      (laughs) Yeah, I need me some money. For real.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

       That's... Well, now you're going to the PFL.

   11. CSClaressa Shields1:00:19

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:19

       And in the PFL, you're in, enrolled in this tournament that if you win, you make a million dollars.

   13. CSClaressa Shields1:00:24

       Next year.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

       Next year.

   15. CSClaressa Shields1:00:25

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

       And, and so, talk me through how, when did you decide to make a transition and try to fight in MMA, and why did you decide to sign with the PFL?

   17. CSClaressa Shields1:00:38

       Well, we had, I had been out the ring from last year January, and I was supposed to fight May. May got pushed back all the way till August. Then August to October, and then after that, we didn't hear nothing else from Showtime. Um, MMA organizations had already re- reached out to me prior. Like, you know, Dana, he wanted me to do something with Amanda, which I was like, um, not that I wouldn't, but it was like, "I need to give myself a fair chance." Like, this girl has been doing MMA for I don't know how long, and, you know, six weeks, I mean, six, six months to a year is just not enough time. Like, I'll go in there and, you know, I'm gonna fight with my, fight with my heart, but it's still, like, technique and everything is needed. So...I didn't look at that. We, we left that. Um, Bellator, (laughs) I don't know, like, we were actually close with them, but they said something about after Watching Me Box that I was too clean of a boxer for them, which I was like, "I don't-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:38

       What?

   19. CSClaressa Shields1:01:39

       ... know what the fuck that mean."

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:40

       Too clean?

   21. CSClaressa Shields1:01:41

       Yeah. Like, I don't wanna go in there and just take risks and get punched in my face or something. I don't know.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:46

       Really?

   23. CSClaressa Shields1:01:46

       I just, I never even asked about it. Once my manager told me that, I said, "Cool." Like-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:51

       (laughs)

   25. CSClaressa Shields1:01:51

       ... "All right." (laughs) Like, nothing I can do about that.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:54

       Too clean of a boxer might be one of the dumbest things a person's ever said.

   27. CSClaressa Shields1:01:57

       It was the num- number th-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:58

       Too clean.

   29. CSClaressa Shields1:01:59

       ... dumbest thing that I've ever heard, so I just was like-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:01

       Too skillful, too sharp.

Episode duration: 1:59:58