Claressa Shields: Criticism of Shakur Stevenson is ‘100 percent wrong’

Claressa Shields has urged Shakur Stevenson to continue to respond to criticism of his performances – and also to continue to fight in the same way.

The 27-year-old Stevenson eased to victory over Artem Harutyunyan on July 6 in the first defense of his WBC lightweight title, but as with the unanimous decision he earned when winning it in November against Edwin De Los Santos, he was criticized for a perception that the fight at Newark, New Jersey’s Prudential Center was dull.

Shields, the undisputed middleweight champion, on Saturday will fight Vanessa Lepage-Joanisse for the WBC heavyweight title and the WBO’s vacant light heavyweight title. She has come to be widely recognized as the world’s finest female fighter – there are observers who continue to believe that Stevenson will come to be seen as the finest male – but ahead of their fight at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, it is Stevenson, whom she refers to as her “brother,” she is most determined to defend.

Shields cited the criticism once aimed at Floyd Mayweather Jr. for not being sufficiently entertaining – he eventually retired as the highest-profile fighter in the world – as how irrelevant she considers the views of those who want to see Stevenson fight with less caution. She, similarly, insists that those most vocal in their criticism of him are critical because they consider him to pose a threat to Gervonta “Tank” Davis, and that instead of Stevenson becoming a more aggressive fighter, he is right to continue to respond.

“He’s a threat,” Shields told BoxingScene. “That’s why he get the criticism. He’s a threat to ‘Tank’ Davis. Everybody wants Tank Davis to just be the top dog, which, hey – he’s a great fighter. I really don’t take nothing away from him. He’s a good fighter – he know how to finish a job; he smell blood, he goes for it. He’s good. But how you gonna knock out somebody you can’t hit?

“How you gonna knock out somebody who’s just as athletic as you, and just as experienced? Shakur’s the biggest threat to Tank, and he makes all the Tank fans come at Shakur and criticize him and try to say mean stuff to him, just to try to make Tank be bigger. But the only way that we’re ever gonna know who’s the best out of Tank and Shakur is if they fight. Tank is going to need more than just punching power to knock out Shakur – to beat Shakur. But Shakur gonna have 100 different game plans on how he can beat Tank. That’s why the criticism comes – because he’s a threat to Tank Davis. Other than that, they have no other reason to hate on Shakur like that.

“He is [authentic]. The criticism only bothers him when he can’t respond. Him responding has been a sense of release for him. People telling celebrities to be quiet and just ignore it is why some celebrities crash out. Shakur responding and saying what he needs to say and getting it off his chest is actually good for him, so that makes him care. But if he has to keep up this image and not respond and have to be nice to people that’s being mean to him, that can be triggering.

“It’s triggering for me. ‘Why do you respond to people?’ Because it makes me feel better when I respond, instead of letting people say all these mean things about me and I don’t say nothing back. Shakur [is] like that. You come at him; he gonna come at you. I have been shocked to see some people that has actually criticized Shakur, because he does have a better boxing career than a lot of people.

“I just can’t believe – I seen Shakur get into it with Andre Berto, who I love to death. I see him get into it with Marcus Browne, my Olympic brother from 2012. Ishe Smith. A lot of people Shakur has got into it with online, I’m actually cool with them people. I just stay out with it because they say mean stuff to him and he just responds – and I think that’s appropriate. It’s appropriate.”

Shields, like Lepage-Joanisse, aged 29, will enhance her reputation in the event of the victory she is expected to secure on Saturday. Stevenson’s promotional agreement with Top Rank expired after his fight with Harutyunyan, but it will perhaps require a convincing victory over Davis or Vasiliy Lomachenko, fellow lightweight world champions, before he is more widely viewed in a similar light to Shields.

“Only the greats get criticized like that,” Shields continued. “People try to find a way to break our will and make us fight a way we don’t wanna fight, or be something we don’t wanna be. The route that Shakur is on right now is beautiful. Everybody like, ‘If he fight against Tank, he’ll just move around the ring,’ but it’s boxing. Anybody who gets in the ring with Shakur, it’s their job to cut off the ring; to have a game plan to beat him. It’s not his job to go in there and get punched in the face. His job is to box, and Shakur has done a great job of that and he’s done really, really excellent blocking out so much of the noise that has come his way, and all of the criticism.

“He’s been criticized like Floyd [Mayweather] was; how I was criticized. ‘She can’t box, she’s just strong.’ So I’d go out there and outbox all these girls, and then it’s, ‘Oh, she just knows how to box, she don’t have no power.’ So you really can’t make the fans happy. You just have to go out there and do what you do best to build yourself up as a fighter. Shakur’s gonna fix his weaknesses and just get better. But as far as him being a boxer, he’s a great boxer.

“If I have to say anything about his fight – I talked to him about it, and I said, ‘Bro, you did everything great, except you had the dude gone and you stopped punching. Why you didn’t finish him?’ And he gave me his feedback – ‘I know I had him’ – but that’s something he gotta work on. But that was my only thing. I wish he woulda stepped on the gas at that moment. But he was inside the ring and he didn’t smell enough blood to go for it, but he definitely was there for me on the outside looking in, and that was my only criticism of him. ‘Hey bro – you shoulda punched more during that round to get the stoppage, to make him quit, because you definitely had him.’

“Other than that, his defense was on point; his offense was on point; he proved all the naysayers wrong. Everybody that said, ‘Shakur don’t step to nobody – all he do is move.’ Shakur stood there in the pocket; he made that dude get on his wheels. I really have no complaints. I’m just proud of him, because with everything that’s happening to him in his career, he got so many reasons to crash out and just go crazy, posting and saying stuff – kinda like Ryan [Garcia] did. But you don’t see Shakur crashing out. You see him really checking people and letting them know, ‘Hey man, you can’t just have an opinion about me and get mad when I have an opinion about you; we all got opinions.’

“Anybody saying that Shakur is a trash boxer is 100 percent wrong.”