WBO middleweight champion Savannah Marshall feels confident that one of the biggest fights in women's boxing can happen at the end of the year.

Marshall aggressively wants to face her rival, two-time Olympic gold medal winner Claressa Shields.

Shields, a three division world champion, suffered a sole defeat as an amateur, at the hands of Marshall at the 2012 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships.

“I think it’ll happen back end of this year. Obviously she’s got stuff going on now with the mixed martial arts and I want to get out again. So I think it’ll be probably November/December time," Marshall said on Betfred’s Boxing Show.

Shields, who has the undisputed junior middleweight crown and two middleweight titles, is making her MMA debut on a June date for PFL.

Marshall sees nothing wrong with Shields' decision to chase the big money in mixed martial arts.

“To be honest, I don’t blame her for going down that route because you look at the response the women are getting in the UFC - even Cage Warriors and other platforms - it’s ten-fold to what female boxing is, isn’t it? So I don’t blame her for going down that road," Marshall said.

As far as her other options, Marshall is interested in the scenario of returning to the super middleweight division to face one of two world champions in the weight class.

“I’d like to go up a weight. I’d like to go back up to super middleweight, there’s two tough champions [Elin Cederroos and Franchon Crews Dezurn], they’ve got two belts each - I’d like to have a crack at one of them. Then I’d be two-weight world champion which means my stock goes up again, because you only get one chance and I want to be in the best possible position I can be for when that chance comes," Marshall said.