It’s payback time. A week after she was reportedly targeted by Remy Ma, who released a diss video featuring Amanda Serrano and Alycia Baumgardner, Claressa Shields finally got the chance to settle the score.

The multi-division champion joined scores of fans who openly questioned Serrano’s performance against a little-known challenger. Headlining the card at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, California, which premiered exclusively on TikTok, Amanda Serrano vs. Lucrecia Manzur drew particular attention to the judges who officiated the fight.

“AND STILL! @serranosisters is the WBA/WBO Featherweight World Champion! Winning by Majority Decision!” read Most Valuable Promotions’ (MVP) X post.

Yet that celebration did little to quiet the criticism that followed.

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Marking her third appearance this year after the trilogy loss to rival Katie Taylor last year, Serrano had to defend her title against Manzur. Fighting out of San Miguel, Tucuman, Argentina, Manzur entered the fight with fourteen wins against four losses in a six-year professional career.

A South American featherweight titleholder, she received a shot at Serrano’s unified championship after defeating fellow Argentine Nahir Erlin for the WBO Latino Female featherweight title late in March this year.

Reports suggested the plan was to match up Serrano against Manzur so that she could break the women’s boxing knockout record. However, that plan, even if true, quickly unraveled as the Argentine fighter, unfazed by Serrano’s star power, delivered a strong performance and pushed the multi-division champion, widely considered one of the greatest women boxers, onto the back foot.

In the end, one of the three judges scored the fight 114-114. However, the other two felt Serrano had done enough to secure the win and awarded her a 116-112 score, handing Serrano a majority decision. The decision immediately drew criticism.

With reports suggesting that over 3.4 million watched the Serrano-Manzur fight on TikTok, many, meanwhile, felt the decision was unfair to the Argentine visitor.

Claressa Shields, fans take aim at Amanda Serrano and MVP after controversial night

“See what happens when you start hanging with losers? 😂 That sh-t contagious. I’ve seen Champ lose and STILL look better than she did tonight,” read the cryptic message from Claressa Shields.

Though she did not tag the MVP post directly, the message was evident. It largely surrounded Serrano’s appearance in Remy Ma’s latest music video. After she defeated Kaye Scott, Shields slammed the trio for their attempt, claiming that none of them would be able to beat her.

Predicatively, Dana Rafael’s scorecard showed how closely Serrano’s title defense unfolded. “Serrano may be down 8-0. In #boxing they don’t give you a gold watch on the way out; they give you a beating,” the veteran journalist wrote.

Fans were not so considerate. Besides Serrano and the judges, some criticized the promoters as well.

For instance, one wrote, “You folks are living in a horrible alternate reality. Y’all robbed that young lady tonight.”

“Bro, wtf with your judges lol. Flores clearly beat Mortensen, and Amanda AT BEST was a draw. You robbed 2 girls of their world titles,” another added.

Before Serrano vs. Manzur became controversial, attention had already turned to the main card fight between Denmark’s Melissa Mortensen and the Mexican Mayelli Flores. The bout for the vacant WBA Women’s Junior Featherweight Championship ended with the Dane winning by a split decision.

Subsequent reports revealed that Flores was being treated for a broken jaw. The injury, combined with her second-round knockdown of Mortensen, underscored how close the bout was. The judges’ scores of 95-94 twice for Mortensen and one 95-94 for Flores drew heavy booing from the crowd.

One of the most blunt takes came from a fan who mocked the MVP by saying, “AND STILL! @jakepaul and MVP keep rigging fights and scorecards 😭😂😂😂.”

While comments such as the one from Claressa Shields could be viewed as stemming from a personal rivalry, it was not the first time that Jake Paul’s promotion had come under such scrutiny.

Even so, the clearest indication that the fight was competitive came from Serrano herself. Taking to social media, the world champion, who reportedly did not attend the post-fight press conference, acknowledged that it was a “rough” fight.

“Honestly, the mind tells you one thing, but the body does another. You can fight anyone you want and squeeze out a victory, but Father Time isn’t allowing too much of that,” she said.

Taken together, Shields and the fans’ overall assessment of the headliner wasn’t far off, despite what some might have wanted to believe.