Jessica McCaskill and Cecilia Braekhus have different memories of their first fight and different outlooks on the rematch, writes Thomas Gerbasi
UNDISPUTED welterweight champion Jessica McCaskill has a singular goal heading into her March 13 rematch with Cecilia Braekhus. “My main goal is to retire her, so I need to do that in a grand fashion.”
Those are fighting words, ones we didn’t expect to hear from either combatant after their first bout in August 2020, when WBC and WBA super-lightweight champ McCaskill went up a division and took all the belts from Norway’s Braekhus via 10-round majority decision, handing the “First Lady” the only defeat of her 37-fight career. In the lead-up to the bout, it was all respect between the two, and even after the razor-close battle, it remained that way, with a post-fight video in the locker room in Tulsa going viral as Braekhus seemingly passed the torch to Chicago’s McCaskill. But as soon as Braekhus left the United States for Norway, she says things went downhill fast.