Shakur Stevenson gained new confidence in himself after watching the lackluster Canelo Alvarez vs. Edgar Berlanga fight card last Saturday night in Las Vegas. Stevenson feels good about his career potential, and it’s understandable why.
After watching those matches on the card, the injured WBC lightweight champion Shakur took to social media to predict that he would go down as “one of the greats” in boxing.
Shakur will not go down as one of the greats, but you can understand why he would get that idea after viewing four of the main fights on the Canelo-Berlanga card. That was like watching a car crash on the side of the road.
The Canelo-Berlanga card would make any halfway decent fighter feel good about themselves because virtually every fight on the high-priced $89.99 card was mediocrity. The co-feature fight between WBA middleweight champion Erislandy Lara and Danny Garcia was one of the worst fights in recent memory.
My honest takeaway from watching the fights tonight is I’m so cold at this boxing [stuff] I’m going go down as one of the greats and one of the best to lace ’em up. I’m on a very, very, very high skill level, and these fighters can’t beat me 😤 #ChasingGreatness,” said Shakur Stevenson on X, pumping himself up after watching the Canelo Alvarez vs. Edgar Berlanga event last Saturday night.
Shakur will likely lose his next fight against William Zepeda in early 2025 and then get knocked out in the rematch. Once that happens, promoter Eddie Hearn will wash his hands of Shakur and move on. In other words, there will not be a Joshua-esque rebuild for Shakur like Hearn did with Anthony Joshua. It’s too expensive.
Since moving up to 135 in 2023, Shakur has been experiencing hand problems, indicating he doesn’t have the physical tools to fight against fighters in this weight class. Due to his lack of power, Stevenson has to load up on every shot with maximum strength, and his hands are too brittle to do that.
The obvious solution to the problem would be for Shakur to return from whence he came at 130 or 126, but he’s outgrown both of those weight classes. He was always a weight bully for featherweight and super featherweight from the jump, but now he can’t melt down to those divisions any longer without missing weight.
Last Updated on 09/15/2024
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