Savannah Marshall battered Lolita Muzeya to defeat inside two rounds in defense of her WBO middleweight title in Newcastle to move closer to a likely clash with Claressa Shields. 

It was more or less a punch perfect performance by Marshall, who was faced with an opponent that started like a whirlwind that soon blew itself out after Marshall started landing heavy shots. 

Promoter Ben Shalom said afterwards that Marshall and Shields would both be boxing on the same card (against different opponents) in Birmingham on December 11. “Then we are in for the big one,” Shalom said. 

Muzeya, from Zambia, was unbeaten in 16 fights but had never boxed outside Africa and the quality of her previous opposition had to be suspect. 

But Muzeya came out swinging as she came forward at Marshall throwing everything she could at Marshall. One decent right got through Marshall’s defenses, but she started picking her own shots and began to catch her with a series of right uppercuts. 

What energy Muzeya had after the first two minutes was poured into the start of the second round, but Marshall was ready for her this time, landing the uppercut, body shots and a stiff jab, barely missing with anything. 

With 30 seconds left of the second round, the Zambian began to fall apart and Marshall went for the finish, rocking her with a big right that forced her back into a corner and then unloading. She tried to fight her way out of the corner, but Marshall hit her with a non-stop stream of punches and, as she fell back into the ropes, a left onto the body followed by a left to the head saw referee Michael Alexander stop the fight two seconds from the end of the round. 

“I’m absolutely overwhelmed, I can’t get over it,” Marshall said of the huge crowd reaction to her win. “At the end of the day, I’m still a woman in a man’s sport and to have this level of support, I’m on cloud nine. 

“I knew she would come like that and I went back to the corner after the first round, Peter (Fury, her trainer) said ‘just weather the storm because she will just die after a couple of rounds’. She only lasted one more. 

“She came at me like a bat out of hell, but fair play to her, she stuck it on me.”  

Sky Sports got Marshall to put on some headphones to listen to a message from Shields, who had been watching in America. Marshall is the only person to have beaten Shields as an amateur or professional, in their only meeting in 2012. 

“Savannah Marshall finally broke the Savannah Marshall curse,” Shields said. “In the amateurs, four times we were supposed to have fought against each other and she lost the day before each time. But today she pulled through, so congrats. See you next year girly and I’ll show you what a real fight and a real champion fights like.” 

Marshall was not impressed. 

“What a load of crap,” she said. “Claressa couldn’t last two minutes with me, let alone two rounds.”