Biography
Jessica McCaskill is an American professional boxer and boxing commentator from St. Louis, Missouri. She is a world champion in two weight classes, having held the undisputed, IBO, and Ring magazine female welterweight titles since 2020; the WBC female super-lightweight title from 2018 to 2020; and the WBA female super-lightweight title from 2019 to 2020. She is also ranked as the world's best active female welterweight by The Ring magazine and BoxRec, and one of the best active female pound-for-pound fighters by ESPN.
Native to Belleville, Illinois, McCaskill and was raised by her great aunt and her four sons. As a child, Jessica's family fell on hard times and they spent some time living in the back of a local church. In 2008, McCaskill started her amateur boxing career purely for fitness, and had her first amateur bout in April 2009. With a 17-1 amateur record, McCaskill won the Golden Glove Championship in 2014 and 2015. In 2012, she relocated to Chicago and started working as an investment banker.
Trained by Rick Ramos, Jessica made her professional boxing debut on 22 August 2015 with a TKO victory over Tyrea Nichole Duncan at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana and, in November 2016, she was signed by the Warriors Boxing management company. After fighting numerous local boxers, McCaskill challenged the renowned Irish Olympic gold-medal boxer, Katie Taylor, for the WBA female lightweight title. The bout took place at the York Hall in London, England on 13 December 2017 with McCaskill losing via unanimous decision.
On 6 October 2018, McCaskill defeated two-weight world champion, Érica Farías, by unanimous decision for the WBC female super-lightweight title at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago, Illinois, claiming her first world title. She then retained her WBC title and won the WBA female super-lightweight title against Anahí Ester Sánchez, again via unanimous decision, on 25 May 2019.
On 12 October 2019, Jessica defended her unified titles in a rematch against Érica Farías at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago. She retained her titles with a hard-fought majority decision win, with two of the judges scoring the bout in favor of McCaskill, and the third scoring it a draw.
On 20 August 2020, she took part in a world welterweight unification bout against Norwegian world champion, Cecilia Brækhus. The fight took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma with Brækhus being the heavy favorite. However, McCaskill pulled off the upset victory with another majority decision win as she claimed the WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO, and IBO female welterweight titles in the biggest win of her career to date. Seven months later, she successfully defended her undisputed welterweight championship in a rematch against Brækhus in Dallas, Texas. Along with retaining her 5 world titles, McCaskill also added the famed Ring magazine belt to her collection.
For her next two title defenses, she defeated Canadian boxer, Kandi Wyatt, in December 2021 and the Mexican fighter, Alma Ibarra, in June 2022, with both bouts ending by stoppage.
In November 2022, McCaskill made history by taking part in the first ever professional women's boxing match to be staged in the United Arab Emirates, along with her opponent, Chantelle Cameron. The bout was the co-main event of the Dmitry Bivol vs. Zurdo Ramírez card in Abu Dhabi and was for the undisputed women's super-lightweight championship in which she lost in a one-sided contest via unanimous points decision.
To date, McCaskill's professional record is 12 wins, 0 draws and 3 losses.
