Having held the WBA and WBC belts since 2009 (later adding the WBO, IBF, IBO and The Ring straps to her collection), Brækhus went into the fight undefeated and tied with heavyweight great Joe Louis for the record of most consecutive title defences in one division.
A win over McCaskill would have seen Brækhus take her number of defences to 26, breaking the record that has stood since 1948. Unfortunately for her, it wasn't meant to be.
McCaskill, already a unified champion at super lightweight, came in as the underdog having had just 10 pro fights - 2 of which she'd lost.
One of those losses came in 2017 against the highly-regarded undisputed lightweight champion Katie Taylor in what was an extremely competitive fight.
In her very next outing, having moved up to super-lightweight, McCaskill claimed the WBC title from champion Érica Farías, and immediately after that went on to win the WBC belt from Anahí Esther Sánchez.
Given what she had achieved since the two losses, Anyone writing McCaskill off based on them would have been foolish to do so.
McCaskill gave Brækhus the toughest night of her career in a close fight that could have gone either way.
As is often the case in women's boxing the shorter 2-minute rounds made for difficult scoring, but while it was hard to split the two, McCaskill's relentless pressure and punch output may have been the decisive factor.
It was a mixed decision with the judges seeing it 95 - 95, 97 - 93 and 97 - 94 in favour of McCaskill.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment...