Tweet
Stevenson is a 3 weight division world champion. Martin hasn't done sht. 
-
-
Just like you ducked haney? You also walked away from a fight potential fight with navarette years ago... Straight coward punk!Comment
-
I cringe anytime someone claims Shakur ducked Haney. I always understood ducking someone meant that you avoided them for fear of losing. Does anyone really think Sahkur would lose to Haney ? I think there’s a pretty clear consensus that Shakur would be the favorite in that match up and would more than likely win.
Now if you wanna claim Shakur priced himself out of a Haney fight that’s a different story, but ducked nah. Haney doesn’t scare anybodyComment
-
So, if Stevenson really wanted the fight, he could have called Martin's bluff on the split so maybe there's two bitches here?Comment
-
I totally supported Shakur when Haney offered him 25%. Now he says he offered Frank Martin 25%, for a WBC title fight! Damn, Shakur, couldn't you have given him at least 35%??? Yeah, he's not a Top Draw, but you already been swerved by Pitbull and Zepeda! Maybe you should've bit the bullet, for a better event?Comment
-
‘Honestly, it’s very frustrating’: Shakur Stevenson irked by inability to land top lightweights
Shakur Stevenson hasn’t been able to get any of the big names around lightweight to fight him, and he admits it’s stressful.
By Wil Esco@wil_esco Sep 18, 2023, 7:16pm EDT
On his frustrations about not being able to get top fighters around his weight class to fight him
“I mean it’s very, very, very frustrating. It’s stressful, frustrating. I try to make the biggest fights happen and the best fights happen. With the Lomachenko situation, that was another guy who was offered the most money he would’ve ever made in his entire career to fight me — he said no. With the Frank Martin situation, he was offered the most money that he would ever make in his career to fight me — he said no. So, honestly, it’s very frustrating trying to get these guys in the ring to fight me...”
On his beef with Devin Haney and wanting to fight him
“I want the fight. I’m the guy who went in the ring. I’m the guy who went to him, I’m the guy who started the chaos. I want the fight, I want the drama, I want the smoke. I’m with that. But at the end of the day he tried to lowball me, he tried to throw something out there that was nothing. It was pennies. My last three fights I made more than what he offered.
“So since I was offered less we went another route. We didn’t just say no to the fight. I went and made myself mandatory for the belt, and I expressed my mandatory position, and now you see me fighting for the WBC title that’s his. I’m fighting for his belt. So the world can put together what really happened.”
Sorry YG, but Frank went "another route."
Comment
-
Shakur Stevenson: “Everyone At 135 Is Scared Of Me”
09/19/2023 - By Jeff Sorby
Shakur Stevenson says his nickname should be ‘The Boodeyman’ because he believes “everyone” in the lightweight division are “scared” of him. Stevenson is in a position where he wants the biggest fights to become a PPV star, but he’s become too focused on money and is missing out on the fights that would increase his popularity.
In other words, Stevenson is putting the cart before the horse and greatly slowing down his process of becoming a superstar.
His ego is getting in the way, and he feels that what he accomplished in the 2016 Olympics with his silver medal and his two-division world titles means more than it actually does.
The reality is most casual boxing fans in the U.S. ignore the Olympics nowadays, and what Shakur accomplished at 126 & 130 is meaningless because divisions aren’t closely followed by people.
Only now, fans are paying attention to Shakur’s career with him moving up to lightweight, and he’s only had one fight against little-known Shuichiro Yoshino.
Shakur (20-0, 10 KOs) hasn’t been able to get the fights he wants against Devin Haney, Frank Martin & Vasily Lomachenko, to name just a few, and he’s not happy about it.
With that said, Stevenson has been his own worst enemy by turning down an offer from undisputed lightweight champion Haney and not offering a deal to Martin that he chose not to take.
Top Rank are good at managing fighters and moving them, but they don’t always move them quickly enough.
For example, Terence Crawford is only now become popular after slogging away for 15 years as a pro. He could have become a star faster if he’d moved up to 154 & 160, but he didn’t, and now he’s old at 36.
It would have been so much faster for Crawford if he’d given up on the 147-lb division and moved up in weight years ago because he would have already fought Jermell Charlo and some of the other big names to become a star.
If Shakur can’t get the fights he wants at 135, he needs to consider moving up to 140 & 147 unless he wants to wait around until he’s 36 or 37 before he finally gets the fights he needs to become a star.
“Maybe 147. I’ve sparred 154-pounders,” said Shakur Stevenson to Showtime Sports when asked what the highest weight he sees himself moving to.
“I sparred with him [junior middleweight Brian Mendoza] when I was a 126-pounder. No cap. Honestly, I feel like I can go up and fight anybody. I feel my skills are going to carry through the weight classes,” said Stevenson.
“We got to find a nickname for Shakur Stevenson. You are too great and too good not to have a nickname that just jumped off the street. How you thought about it?” said Brian Custer.
“No, I haven’t thought about it. I think nicknames should come to people,” said Shakur. “I ain’t really looking for it, but if someone was to call me something right now, it would be the ‘Boogeyman’ because I think everyone at 135 is scared of me,” said Stevenson.
Comment
-
Frank Martin aside, I said elsewhere but regardless of whether ducked or priced out, the fact is that Shakur refused to accept a fight that would've gotten him the "reward" that would provided the motivation for others to fight him especially if he isn't willing to offer money for reward. Maybe he thought he should get more than what was offered, and as a two division champ he thought he should have the A-side treatment which may be understandable from his side, but the fact right this moment is that he is a beltless fighter who seems to not be willing to offer good money to fight him. He needs to understand his potential opponents get nothing except fight money and a slim possibility to get bragging rights among hardcore fans that they defeated a currently beltless former two division champ but nothing to show at the current weight, while risking losing their zero and losing market value, losing out on a chance for more money in the future, not to mention potentially getting injured.
Like him or not, Haney actually took the time and effort to collect all the belts to become undisputed. His market value is heavy on the fact that he is "the champion who has all the belts in this weight class" and the man to beat to claim the best of the class. If he is going to risk losing all the belts and lowering his market value, he has all the right to try to gain as much as possible. Since Shakur isn't going to have a belt to offer, it is understanding that he will want money instead because in the business world of boxing the bragging rights of "I defeated a beltless former two division champ Shakur" doesn't feed you in public. What Shakur should have done is to suck it up and accepted the Haney fight first to get the belts, then become the top dog by the belts as well as skills at this weight then demand the money.
I mean, Inoue managed to get Fulton for his first first without any belts to offer but instead he offered by far the biggest cash reward that Fulton would only dream of getting fighting anyone else, which made it worth risking losing his belts and zero and status as the man to beat at 122 lbs. Fulton didn't accept to fight Inoue in Japan because he thought Inoue was the top dog and therefore he deserves to fight at his home. He accepted travelling to Japan as the belt holding champ because he got 3-4 million dollars by doing so instead of few hundred thousands fighting random challenger he can beat with ease in Philadelphia. Obviously Frank Martin is no where near the value of where Fulton was, but Shakur is not exactly national cash cow of Inoue's caliber yet either when he is beltless.Last edited by Elheath; 09-19-2023, 06:12 AM.Comment
-
I was talking to a coworker about Deontay Wilder and he was like, "Oh, yeah- doesn't he fight at Middleweight?"
If your name is not Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson, Muhammed Ali, or Roy Jones Jr., nobody outside of boxing knows who you are..
Let's stop using A-side/B-side bologna and be fair. Make fights, not excuses.
Comment
Comment