Shakur Stevenson roasted promoter Bob Arum for comments he made in an interview this week, suggesting that he has no options in his free agency other than Top Rank.
After Shakur’s last fight against Edwin De Los Santos in November, he might not have a lot of interest from other promotional companies now that he’s entering the free agent market after his fight against Artem Harutyunyan on July 6th in Newark, New Jersey.
A Defensive Style in an Aggressive Era
Shakur feels there will be a huge stampede for his services as a free agent, but he could be kidding himself. Not many promoters would want to pour money into a defensive fighter with a non-TV-friendly fighting style, which is bad for ratings and could jeopardize a company’s spot with a broadcaster.
Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs), WBC lightweight champion, says he doesn’t like how his career has slowed under Top Rank’s guidance since he moved up to 135. He feels that they should have gotten him fights against Vasily Lomachenko and George Kambosos Jr.
Top Rank likely chose not to offer Shakur Lomachenko and Kambosos once they heard him lavishing praise on PBC, dropping hints that he was heading there once his contract ended. They had to have heard the gushing Shakur was doing about PBC, and whatever desire they had of putting him in with one of his big names at 135, that killed it.
2016 Olympic silver medalist Shakur, 26. insists that he’s going to be a “legendary” fighter and that a fight between him and Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis will be one of the biggest fights in boxing when it happens.
Unfortunately, Shakur isn’t performing like a fighter who will be legendary, and Tank Davis wants nothing to do with fighting him due to his ultra-defensive style of fighting.
Defensive fighters are avoided in this era of boxing, especially if they lack popularity with mainstream fans like Shakur. Being popular with a small group of ultra-loyal fighters is not enough.
Shakur belongs in a different era where fighters like himself were celebrated; fans didn’t mind dumping their cash on watching hit-and-run guys. It’s bad for a promotional company to use a defensive fighter and risk messing up a deal with their broadcasters, especially if it’s one as good as gold, like ESPN.
Fans’ tastes have changed, and they now spend their money more wisely on exciting fighters and ignore the boring ones. If there were a time machine that could take Shakur back to the Mayweather era, he would fit in perfectly, but not in this generation. He’s an odd duck.
Unfulfilled Potential and Frustrations with Top Rank
“I got the best seat in the house. With free agency, we all know that me and Tank is going to be the biggest fight for years to come, and I think that any promoter or anybody will be involved when that happens,” said Shakur Stevenson to Fight Hub TV when asked about his being a promotional free agent with his contract with Top Rank expiring in his next fight on July 6th against Artem Harutyunyan.
Whatever promoter Shakur signs with, they could regret their decision later because he’s never going to change his fighting style to be an entertaining fighter. Stevenson is already set in his ways, and if he tries to change his fighting style, his opposition will cook him because he’s too fragile.
“Bob [Arum] was basically trying to say, ‘Top Rank or nothing,’” said Shakur about promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank’s recent interview where he suggested that Al Haymon of PBC wasn’t looking to sign new fighters and that Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn had told him that he wouldn’t pay Stevenson the kind of money that Arum was.
If Shakur leaves Top Rank, he could find himself fighting once a year on PBC on undercard slots because they’re not likely going to risk putting him in main events and screw up their deal with Amazon Prime. With Shakur bringing in poor ratings, he’d be a cancer for PBC.
“He was basically putting it out there that I don’t go no other options out there but Top Rank, and ‘Go see the market and go come back and see us.’ And then he was saying conversations that he and Eddie Hearn were allegedly having. We don’t know if it’s true or not,” said Shakur.
Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn indeed told Arum that he wouldn’t pay Shakur the same kind of money that Arum had. Hearn isn’t going to hemorrhage money on a defensive fighter like Shakur on DAZN, with his fights bringing in only minimal subscribers. Eddie doesn’t need that kind of aggravation.
“I think Bob should just shut up, and allow the people that’s running his company to run his company because he’s not even running his own company. I don’t know. I don’t count nothing out. It’s business,” said Shakur when asked if he thinks he could return to Top Rank.
It’s not Top Rank’s fault that Shakur’s performances in his fights have failed to take his career to thie next level. If Shakur had been knocking out most of his opponents the way Gervonta Davis has, he’d be a PPV star right now and would have the pick of the litter in terms of other promotional companies he could sign with.
Top Rank wouldn’t let Shakur leave in a million years if he had a 30-0, 28 record like Tank Davis, and he would have already fought Lomachenko, Kambosos, and Ryan Garcia by now.
Misjudging His Worth
“The same way they look at it is the same way I look at it. If the business makes sense, then yeah, if the business don’t make sense, then there’s no point. I know my worth. I know in the years to come, I’m going to be one of the most legendary fighters to ever do it. That’s my worth,” said Shakur.
The problem is that Shakur doesn’t know his worth and fails to understand that his defensive, safety-first fighting style places him in the ‘Who needs em’ club. So, since moving up to 135, he’s never gotten any of the big fights he feels he deserves.
“After I started getting bigger as far as my notoriety with my name, I think we were doing good,” said Shakur when asked if he’s pleased with how Top Rank has handled his career. “But once I got to 135, everything started slowing down,” said Shakur.
Stevenson fails to point out that when he moved up to 135, he started praising PBC, making it seem that was a company he wanted to go to next. Shakur only fought twice at 135, and one of those fights was a dreadfully boring performance. Whatever notoriety Shakur got at lightweight, it was brief, and he was mostly criticized.
“I felt as though they could have gave me the George Kambosos fight like they gave Lomachenko, but they didn’t do that. I felt we could have put a little more pressure on Lomachenko to make the fight happen, but they [Top Rank] didn’t do that.
“When I got to 135, I got bigger, as far as my notoriety, and then things changed,” said Shakur.
When Shakur got to 135, Top Rank matched him against a tomato can, Shuichiro Yoshino, and then put him in with the big puncher Edwin De Los Santos, and he was awful in that fight. Shakur ran all night and was booed loudly by the fans at the T-Mobile, who continued booing him as he left the ring.
The injury excuses that Shakur made later didn’t hold water with the fans, as it wasn’t the first time that he’d put on a boring performance.
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