Shakur Stevenson says he injured both hands during his fight against Artem Harutyunyan last Saturday night in Newark, New Jersey.
Although Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) got the one-sided twelve-round unanimous decision to retain his WBC lightweight title, his stock continued to plummet with his second consecutive unexciting performance.
Stevenson should have tipped fans off before the fight that he was fighting with two “fragile” hands because it would have gone better with them if they felt he was fighting with a handicap and wasn’t 100%. But for Shakur to reveal the problem immediately after paints the picture of a fighter just making excuses to deflect criticism.
“Yeah, both of them. They’re fragile. I’m going to get them stronger in the offseason,” said Shakur Stevenson on social media, revealing that he injured both hands in his win over Artem Harutyunyan last Saturday night.
Doubts about Future Success
If Shakur does have bad hands, he needs to consider retirement because it’s likely not going to get better, and he isn’t going to beat one of the killers in the lightweight division like Gervonta Davis, William Zepeda or Vasily Lomachenko fighting the way he’s done in his last two fights against Harutyunyan and Edwin De Los Santos.
“Listen, Shakur did what he normally does. He boxes them, and he wins, but I talked to him last night, and [he stated that] both of his hands were hurt. I talked to his cousin, and he said he’s always hurting his hands when he’s punching,”‘ said trainer Derek ‘Bozy’ Ennis to YSM Sports Media about Shakur Stevenson saying he’s injured both hands during his fight against Artem Harutyunyan.
Floyd Mayweather had bad hands, but he fought at a higher level than Shakur throughout his career, even when he got old. Shakur’s hands must be in worse shape than Mayweather’s were.
“I told him to stop listening to the people and stop listening to the crowd talking about you. You ain’t got to be cussing at them. Don’t let them take you off the square. You won the fight, and now you got to go back in the lab,” said Bozy.
“You got out there and fight and do what you have to do,” said Bozy when asked how Shakur can handle his business. I told Shakur last night to let his hands go a little bit more, and he would have stopped him. He was waiting and throwing one or two shots.
“It was an awkward fighter. Sometimes when you get in with an awkward fighter, sometimes it can be difficult,” said Bozy about Harutyunyan being an awkward fighter for Shakur.
Read the full article here
