Male boxer shares shocking clip of him FLOORING Claressa Shields in 2018 sparring session - but female world champion claims he took padding out of his gloves before entering the ring

Female boxing world champion Claressa Shields is sent tumbling to the canvas in shocking footage from her 2018 sparring session with a male boxer.

Latvian fighter Arturs Ahmetovs recently shared a clip which shows him sparring with Shields, an undisputed champion in the women's middleweight division.

As the pair exchange punches, Ahmetovs connects with a chopping left hook which sends his female counterpart crashing to the deck.

It is unclear whether Shields returned to her feet and continued the session as the video ends with the three-weight champion staring straight up at the ceiling. 

Ahmetovs, who won six of his seven professional contests from 2019-20, appeared to post footage from the sparring session in response to a claim by Shields back in September that an unnamed fighter dropped her after taking the padding out of his gloves.

'I've been dropped in sparring once by a guy,' she said. 'But the guy I sparred, he was like a little Russian hater, he took the padding out of his gloves.

'I whopped his a** on the Monday, and his coach wanted to spar again on Thursday. He caught me, but he didn't have no padding in his gloves. He knows exactly who he is.'

Ahmetovs then posted a clip of Shields' comments followed by his shot which put her down in the now-infamous sparring session.

'It’s nice that you remember me @claressashields,' he wrote before his coach Derik Santos added: 'She is full of s***, they asked for help to spar, why would we want to spar a women [sic]?

'No one took padding out of the gloves. After she was accusing of this, the gloves were handed to her coach. 

'But more importantly she sparred 2 rounds prior where [...] artur was instructed not to hit her hard, while he was working with her she started talking mad s*** at him and fouling him to [the] point she tripped him.'

After Ahmetovs released the sparring footage, Shields doubled down on her claim that he removed padding from his gloves in a series of posts on X.

She said: 'One thing for sure, if I went public 2018 about how this fellow professional boxer & boxing trainer took his padding out his gloves to spar against me because I embarrassed him earlier that week, it would have jeopardized my upcoming world title fight.

'I’ve never been Ko’d in 17 years and I’ve been dropped 2x all in a week of each other. I have no shame in that. But for a male fighter to literally take the padding out his gloves, he’s a punk. Him and coach Derrick santos are bad for the sport! 

'I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want my opponent to have information of me getting dropped leading up to my fight. But why keep a video hidden for 5 years and you so big and bad - F*** outta here.'