Gervonta Davis’ trainer, Calvin Ford, says they’ll send a contract to Shakur Stevenson for a fight. If WBC lightweight champion Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) agrees, they’ll fight next.
The ‘Big Four’ and Shakur’s Worth
Ford wants that fight for WBA lightweight champion Tank Davis (30-0, 28 KOs) because he views the New Jersey native Shakur as one of the “Big Four” that he wants for his fighter.
Some believe that Shakur will price himself out like he did against Devin Haney and wind up losing the Tank Davis fight because he doesn’t recognize that he’s not a star.
He’s just a belt-holder with fans who enjoy his retro Mayweather-esque outdated fighting style, which doesn’t fit in this era of boxing. The sport is changed due to the heavy competition from MMA, and now it’s about entertaining the fans, and the old style of hit-and-not-get-hit doesn’t work with fans or the networks.
“We going to send you a contract with the money. If they take it, they take it. We just seen what happened just now when Loma didn’t take the fight,” said coach Calvin Ford to Fannon Boxing about Team Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis planning to send a contract to Shakur Stevenson for a fight in November. “Shakur is one of the last of the big 4, to tell you the truth.”
Ford doesn’t say who the “Big Four” are, but it includes these fighters:
- Vasily Lomachenko
- Shakur Stevenson
- William Zepeda
- Denys Berinchyk
Shakur’s Overestimation
It’s unlikely that Shakur will accept the deal from Tank Davis because he believes that his WBC title and the world titles he captured at 126 and 130 count for parity. They don’t, and those are meaningless when negotiating with a PPV attraction like Tank Davis.
Shakur will likely reject the deal and be where he is now, left to fight the obscure fighters like he’s been doing. If Stevenson, 27, signs with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom, he’ll be stuck fighting 140-pounders, and he won’t last long against them.
“People are divided down the middle. They don’t know who is going to win fight. Boxing rarely does this. Will these guys give us this fight?” said Paulie Malignaggi to Probox TV about the Tank Davis vs. Shakur Stevenson clash.
Hardcore boxing fans believe Tank Davis will easily beat Shakur. What Malignaggi is talking about is unclear because people on social media believe Shakur stands no chance against Tank Davis. All you need to do is look at the close call Shakur had against Edwin De Los Santos last November to know that he would lose badly to Tank.
“You can see that Shakur is talking about wanting the fight. He’s been wanting this fight. Shakur is the only one that has been calling all these guys out and the fight never happens. He’s a free agent. He can do it,” said Malignaggi.
The truth is, Vasily Lomachenko had been calling out Tank Davis for years but with no luck. It’s not Shakur who wanted the fight against Tank. Loma wanted it but was ignored by Tank’s previous promoters at Mayweather Promotions.
“Coming off the last fight [against Artem Harutyunyan], he actually needs it more than Tank,” said Teddy Atlas.
Public Perception
Shakur definitely needs the Tank Davis fight after turning in his second poor performance against Artem Harutyunyan on July 6th, following his dreadful effort against De Los Santos last November. If Shakur doesn’t get the Tank fight now, his value will continue to plummet.
Stevenson was booed loudly by fans in both of those fights, but the unkindest cut was when his fans began streaming out of the Prudential Center beginning in the eighth round of his fight against Harutyunyan.
“Shakur needs all the big names because it comes down to what he can do against all of these guys,” said boxing expert Chris Algieri. “He’s so otherworldly good. He makes the fights look so easy. So when you put a guy in that’s not that well known, he doesn’t get the recognition for it.”
Shakur’s Declining Appeal
Shakur isn’t “otherworldly good.” He’s boring to watch, and he’s failing to gain a following with the boxing public, who hates his non-engaging, play-it-safe style of fighting, which is frustrating to watch. It was embarrassing how lightweight prospect Abdullah Mason upstaged Shakur on his undercard, turning in another sparking performance and getting the most fan applause in Stevenson’s home city in Newark.
“I’m going to bring up the Oscar Valdez fight [against Shakur in 2022]. People thought it was going to be a fight. It wasn’t. It was a wash,” said Algieri.
Algieri fails to mention that Oscar Valdez was coming off a controversial twelve-round decision win over Robson Conceicao in September 2021 when he fought Shakur in April 2022.
Many boxing fans believed Valdez should have lost the fight against Conceicao. What Stevenson did against Valdez isn’t that impressive when you look at what Conceicao had done to him in his previous fights.
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