Claressa Shields earned a third-round technical knockout in her long-awaited MMA debut at 2021 PFL 4 on Thursday night, but had to overcome some adversity after being down two rounds.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and boxing champion met Brittany Elkin, a season veteran and brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and was put on her back almost immediately. From there, Shields was controlled on the bottom, but did enough defensively to not take a ton of damage in such a compromising position. The fight played out this way for the better part of two rounds, and it was likely Shields needed a stoppage going into the third round.