Shakur Stevenson, the WBC lightweight champion, reacted on social media last Saturday night to Vasyl Lomachenko’s eleventh-round demolition of former unified 135-lb champion George Kambosos, saying he’s being denied a chance to fight the Ukrainian legend.
Shakur’s Crawford-Pacquiao Comparison
The New Jersey native Shakur compared his situation of being blocked from a fight against Lomachenko to the way Terence Crawford never got a chance to fight Manny Pacquiao when the two shared the same promoter at Top Rank. Shakur is putting himself in Crawford’s shoes.
“Loma can’t do nothing with me, I promise you that. That’s why they will never let me punch on him. The same way they saved Pacman from Bud,” said Shakur Stevenson on Instagram, reacting to Vasily Lomachenko’s eleventh-round KO of George Kambosos Jr. last Saturday night in Perth.
Shakur, 26, and Lomachenko (18-3, 12 KOs) are both with Top Rank. The whining that the 2016 U.S Olympic silver medalist Stevenson is doing about how they don’t let him fight Loma doesn’t make sense, given that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum repeatedly mentioned wanting to set up a fight between the two next.
That’s the fight Arum wants, even though it doesn’t compare to others that would make Lomachenko more money and increase his fame. The reality is that Shakur isn’t popular due to what some feel is his boring style of fighting, and he’s not good at marketing himself in the same way fighters like Ryan Garcia and Gervonta Davis do.
Is Stevenson Even Worth Fighting?
Unfortunately, Lomachenko might not want to fight Shakur because he doesn’t engage. He runs around the ring, throwing a few punches, and looking to win decisions. Shakur won a controversial 12-round decision in his last fight against the big puncher Edwin De Los Santos last November, running and being booed.
Shakur claimed he was injured after the fight, yet he didn’t attempt to set up a rematch to clear up the controversy and to show the boxing public that he could do better.
I think Lomachenko would be better off fighting Gervonta Davis and Emanuel Navarrete or rematching Devin Haney if they could work the weight out by putting a strict 10-lb rehydration clause to keep him from rehydrating to 160+.
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