Promoter Oscar De La Hoya has concerns about Shakur Stevenson’s ability to sell tickets ahead of a potential fight against challenger William Zepeda.
Shakur’s Style: A Turn-Off for Fans
De La Hoya insists he will make the fight between them, but he has doubts about the WBC lightweight champion Shakur’s marketability. He’s not popular outside the nerdy ultra-hardcore crowd who enjoy his retro defensive style.
Zepeda (31-0, 27 KOs) is ranked #1 with the WBC, and he’s the most logical challenger to face Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) if he can’t land the unification match that he’s been begging for against WBA champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis. However, De La Hoya wants to ensure the fight is worthwhile for the knockout artist Zepeda before he pulls the trigger.
Shakur’s last two fights at 135 have been poorly received by fans, who criticized him on social media. Last November, he was booed out of the T-Mobile Arena for running all night against Edwin De Los Santos.
The three fights that Shakur has had since moving up to lightweight in 2023 have shown that he’s not physically or mentally designed to fight in this division. He’s not comfortable with the power of the fighters and takes off like a bat out of hell when met with fire from his opposition.
“I want to make that fight. Shakur, skill-wise, is probably the best fighter on the planet today. But he has to be able to sell tickets. It will happen. I will make that fight,” said promoter Oscar De La Hoya to the Fighthype YouTube channel about his concerns about Shakur Stevenson’s ability to sell tickets ahead of a fight against William Zepeda.
De La Hoya is going a little overboard with his false flattery of Shakur because he’s not the “best fighter on the planet” skill-wise. When you’re afraid of exchanges, as Shakur is, you can’t be the “best” of anything.
The ‘Fencing’ Style: Unfit for Modern Boxing
He’s shown that he’s incapable of standing in the pocket against his opponents at lightweight and treats his fights like fencing matches. Boxing isn’t fencing, and that’s the reason why Shakur can’t sell tickets.
He’s treating his fights like he’s in the sport of fencing with a sword, and that style doesn’t work with U.S. fans in this era. If there was a working time machine, you could put Shakur on it and send him on a one-way trip back to the 1990s so he could compete with dull fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr.
He’d fit in better back then when fans appreciated that fighting style. Boxing had less competition than other sources of entertainment back then, but things are different now. You got to entertain, and Shakur can’t do that.
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