Promoter Eddie Hearn confirms that he’s planning to try to sign Shakur Stevenson to his Matchroom stable and believes he can “make him a star” quite easily with his promotional help.
Hearn’s Confidence in Making Shakur a “Star”
Hearn states that Shakur will attend this Saturday’s fight between Matchroom’s recent signee, Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, and David Avanesyan at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. The idea is for WBC lightweight champion Shakur to be seen by the public and for Hearn to lure him into the Matchroom fold.
“Shakur Stevenson is one of the most talked about fighters in the world. I know I can make him a star; that’s easy for me. I’ve got the dates, I’ve got the platform, I’ve got the megaphone. Let’s do it,” said Eddie Hearn to Seconds out.
It’s questionable whether Hearn can turn Shakur into a PPV star, and he would need to do that for him to be genuine, not someone who is popular for being disliked by the public.
No matter how hard Hearn promotes Shakur, he’s never going to be a crossover star in the U.S. that fans want to see because he’s not a must-watch TV show. American fans want to see fighters who entertain, like Gervonta Davis, Isaac Cruz, David Benavidez, Canelo Alvarez, and Ryan Garcia.
Those are the gold standard for what U.S. fans want to watch for entertainment. Shakur fits into a different category, where fans want to watch him more because of his abrasive personality and his work on social media. He puts in almost as much work on Twitter as Ryan Garcia, which says a lot.
Hearn rightly points out that Shakur (22-0, 14 KOs) is one of the fighters most talked about in the boxing ring now. None of Shakur’s critics can dispute that he’s being talked about more than anyone following his lackluster twelve-round unanimous decision win over Artem Harutyunyan last weekend.
Shakur’s “Mayweather Effect”
Stevenson has that Mayweather effect on people where they can’t stand his arrogant mindset and the way that he brags about himself endlessly but then fails to back it up inside the ring by putting on boring performances one after another.
If Hearn signs Shakur, he must try to put together a fight with Gervonta Davis or Vasily Lomachenko fast because he won’t last long before he gets beaten. Stevenson almost lost to Edwin De Los Santos last November, and that guy isn’t considered one of the top-level fighters.
“The deal has got to be right, and there’s got to be a buy-in from him that we’ve still got a job to do, but it doesn’t take long. You see, with Boots. If Boots shines this weekend, we’re there,” said Hearn, talking about his recent signee, IBF welterweight champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis, who defends his title this Saturday night against replacement opponent David Avanesyan.
Hearn will never turn Shakur into another Boots Ennis type of fighter, where fans want to see him fight because he’s entertaining. However, Shakur is far more interesting to listen to than Boots, who has very little to say and doesn’t have the same charismatic personality.
“You’re talking about one of the biggest stars in the sport already, and I can do that with Shakur easy-work,” said Hearn about needing to build Shakur into a star because he’s not one now. “I rate Boots top five pound-for-pound, and the same for Shakur.”
The Need for High-Profile Fights
Without Shakur beating Tank Davis, Vasily Lomachenko, and William Zepeda, he isn’t going to be transformed into a big star in the U.S. Shakur will be an Adrien Broner type of fighter, where he talks a good game during interviews and press conferences, but is boring and underperforming in his fights. Broner’s performances were much better when he was younger than Shakur’s.
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