Shakur Stevenson vs. Joe Cordina will reportedly now headline DAZN PPV’s undercard event on October 12th in the Riyadh Season event at the Kingdom Arena. The main event between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol will be on ESPN+. In other words, the card will be chopped up, and the co-main undercard fight between Shakur and Cordina will now be headlining on DAZN PPV. Fans must tune in to ESPN+ to watch the true headliner between light heavyweight champions Beterbiev and Bivol.
In a way, it’s a good deal because the Beterbiev-Bivol fight won’t be on PPV. Fans who don’t have ESPN+ would need to subscribe. Many people weren’t interested in seeing Shakur fight anyway. He was someone fans had to put up with while waiting for the gem between Beterbiev and Bivol.
Beterbiev-Bivol on ESPN+
Brunch Boxing reports that the Beterbiev-Bivol fight will be shown on ESPN+, which makes sense given that Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) is with Top Rank, which has an exclusive deal with ESPN. It sounds like a mess splitting the card because the main interest from fans is the Beterbiev vs. Bivol fight, not Shakur’s match against former IBF super featherweight champion Cordina, who is looming off an eighth-round knockout loss to Anthony Cacace on May 18th.
It’s going to be a tough sell for DAZN to have WBC lightweight champion Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) in the main event, defending against British fighter Cordina (17-1, 9 KOs), as neither fighter is a draw in the U.S. Stevenson, 27, has never headlined on a PPV card before. He’s got the wrong opponent for him to start.
The undercard for Stevenson vs. Cordina features mismatches and fights that won’t attract fans in the U.S. It’s unclear what the PPV price will be for the Stevenson-Cordina card. Obviously, it would need to be relatively low to sell because Shakur isn’t a fighter that fans would want to see.
Shakur was loudly booed in his last two fights against Artem Harutyunyan and Edwin De Los Santos. Fans were piling out of the Prudential Center for Shakur’s fight against Harutyunyan in Newark, New Jersey. This is Shakur’s hometown.
On the positive side. Shakur can now brag to his followers that he’s a PPV headliner and use that in future negotiations with fighters. Even if his fight with Cordina completely bombs on DAZN PPV, this might be a new beginning for him to sell all of his fights behind a paywall.
DAZN PPV card on October 12th
Shakur Stevenson vs Joe Cordina
Chris Eubank Jr vs Kamil Szeremeta
Fabio Wardley vs Frazer Clarke II
Jai Opetaia vs Jack Massey
Ben Whittaker vs Liam Cameron
Skye Nicolson vs Raven Chapman
Mohammed Alakel vs Jesus Gonzalez
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