Comments Thread For: Paulie Malignaggi's Picks: Shakur Stevenson showed he's best at 135 pounds and that it's time for rivals to step up

[Bronx2245]

Levels to the game... Whitaker could hurt you... Specially with a counter, Mayweather? ditto. Rigo was elite. Shakur has not shown the same capacity compared to Loma for example... With LOma? you give him an inch and he becomes a physically strong, hard hitting, pressure fighter who will not let you breathe.

So what does it say when Loma chose Kambo instead of Shakur? What does it say when Pitbull chose Cabrera instead of Shakur? How about Navarrette choosing Berinchyk over Shakur? How about Zepeda choosing Cabrera over Shakur? If Shakur isn’t that good, why won’t they fight him?

[wrecksracer]

So what does it say when Loma chose Kambo instead of Shakur? What does it say when Pitbull chose Cabrera instead of Shakur? How about Navarrette choosing Berinchyk over Shakur? How about Zepeda choosing Cabrera over Shakur? If Shakur isn’t that good, why won’t they fight him?

It was a better business move for Loma to get a belt vs Kambo, and then fight Davis. There was way more money in it. Yeah, it left Shakur with no move except for crying in his T Shirt that Loma is ducking him. Is it really a duck when you choose the higher profile bigger money fight? Shakur should have rolled the dice vs Haney

[billeau2]

So what does it say when Loma chose Kambo instead of Shakur? What does it say when Pitbull chose Cabrera instead of Shakur? How about Navarrette choosing Berinchyk over Shakur? How about Zepeda choosing Cabrera over Shakur? If Shakur isn’t that good, why won’t they fight him?

I honestly couldn't tell you. I mean Loma is a veteran and probably has a criteria that makes sense.

Pitbull has never ducked anybody. He may have a reason he's fighting someone else, but just judging from his actions in the past? I doubt he's ducking Shakur.

I do think if I was cruz I would have some fear that the judges wouldn't necessarily welcome a Mexican champion and rob him which they more or less did against tank in my opinion. But that is just a theory.

There may be some feelings that you cannot look good against somebody like Shakur which I would never say is a justification but it might be a reason.

[billeau2]

So what does it say when Loma chose Kambo instead of Shakur? What does it say when Pitbull chose Cabrera instead of Shakur? How about Navarrette choosing Berinchyk over Shakur? How about Zepeda choosing Cabrera over Shakur? If Shakur isn’t that good, why won’t they fight him?

Just wanted to point out you're making a major assumption here. You are assuming if people are ducking Shakur, it is because he is as you put it " that good ".

[CarlW]

Same thoughts. Six months ago I thought he'd be too much for Camaron Zepeda, but I've changed my opinion about that. Stevenson's fans are making a lot of excuses for his performances, but there are no excuses if he's really the elite fighter that he and the media claim he is. He's got real flaws and he doesn't like to scrap. A hard nosed pressure fighter with decent power and a good engine is going to expose this guy.

Except Zepeda's engine is not "good" - it's superior to anyone's in boxing.

[billeau2]

To say that Shakur is the best fighter today at 135 is really not saying much because the division is void of big names.

If reports are correct that TR offered him a 5 fight deal for 15M, Sharkur and his handlers are fools for not taking that offer. Now, the reasons why;

Shakur is a fighter who’s best fit is for those suffering from insomnia who want to get off drugs like Ambien. . He brings zero entertainment value to any fight. Boxing like most sports thrives on entertainment. If you can fight, help market a promotion, sell tickets and PPV’s you have value. Value =$$$.

Now let’s be clear, Floyd Mayweather made massive money, but, besides his fighting ability which relied more on defense, was otherwise limited in those core values. Floyd just happened to be fighting at a time when the stats were perfectly aligned for him. In other words, he had high vale dance partners to fight like; DLH, Canelo, Cotto, Hatton, Pacquiao, McGregor, and to a lesser extent Sugar Shane and JMM. It just doesn’t get better that that.

Shakur’s dance partners on the other hand are limited. After Tank and possibly Loma, things start to drop off with Teo in the mix. Tank himself while having high value, is not yet a PPV bonanza. But, that’s the biggest fight available for Shakur if he signs with PBC.

As an exercise, let’s give a score from 1-5 each for a fighters fighting (F) and entertainment (E) value.

Let me give you some examples:
Canelo: F5, E5
DLH: F5, E5
Mayweather: F5, E3
Hamed: F4, E5
R. Garcia: F3.5, E5
Tank: F5, E3
Shakur: F3, E2

Tank vs Shakur PPV:

Given todays market conditions, it would be a stretch for that PPV to sell more than 150K buys at best. Don’t forget, that live stream from pirated signal greatly depletes PPV sales.

At 150K PPV buys at $48.95, the gross sales would be 7.5M. Fifty percent of that revenue goes to the cable networks and the PPV consolidator. That leaves the Promoter with 3.8M. After you have the live gate and international sales. Assume you had an arena that could fill 15K seats at an average cost of $300 per ticket, that would gross 3.5M in revenue. International sale could generate 200K at best.

So, 3.8M+ 3.5M + 200K gives you 7.5M in total revenue. It’s possible that a casino would pay a site fee because that would bring in the rappers and entertainment stars who love to gamble, which is what casinos look for. A casino might pay a 1M site fee at best. So, the Promoter could have 8.5 M to work with.

Now, even a PPV.at $49.95, (remember Shakur has very little value) so anything north of $49.95 is not realistic.

The Promoter would them have to put an attractive co-main event an undercard. It would be wise for the Promoter to have a Hispanic, preferably Mexican as the Ci attraction because those fans support their fighters.

Recently, PBC had the Tszyu v Fondora fight with Lara as the Co- main. PBC paid about 1M for that co-main and approximately 500K for the rest of the undercard.

Following the numbers, $8.5 minus $1,5= $7M

Of you paid Tank $5M and Shakur 3M, you’d be in the red by $1M. Now we know the Promoter has to eat, so he would need to sell fight sponsorships totaling at least $1M to break even and at best treat himself ti a bucket of KFC with some sides.

What I gave you was possibly the best case scenario for a Tank v Shakur PPV fight.

Niw tell me, how on earth could Shakur and his handlers not have taken the TR offer like thieves in the night?

Shakur is a money loser for any Promoter based on his fight and entertainment value. If any Promoter pays him more than 1M for a non-PPV fight, he would be losing money. On the other hand, as.the B side on a PPV show, $3M is his absolute best purse, and with that, with the Promoter would be breaking even or losing money.

This post provokes a lot of thoughts.

It is kind of crazy but 135 has become sort of a pass through division as everybody grows out of it. I guess people are getting bigger lol.

With respect to how you ran the numbers, boxing has to change because right now it is just pricing people out.

I actually believe it would be better not to have taken that offer. However I don't know if these guys are ready to give some fights away get casuals interested, promote their own fights, hook up a situation like the Paul brothers have... Do real work to get people involved through social media instead of the archaic promoter model.

If they invested that way they could start to make money. The old model is just too top heavy financially. It depends on people spending a lot of money, being willing to build interest on their own dime. It ain't going to happen.

For example, take monster trucks. This form of entertainment, I learned about through my young son when he was very young, required kids to learn about the different characters, go to the concerts/shows, etc. but they did a brilliant job. Everything was gearedso that a middle-class family could go out for the evening and come home fed, a few beers had, and even a few souvenirs bought. By making it affordable they were investing in new fans coming along.

Promoters are kind of like housing development contractors. you can have a whole gigantic development, all the money's flowing everywhere and you often make your profit on the last house sold. It's that crazy.

One of the reasons I liked your post is how you understand this same concept as it applies to boxing promoters. it's a bad model... That's the bottom line. It is unsustainable. They will not be able to pay fighters anything near what they want if this continues.

promoters like housing contractors, have to cut corners, and make theirs at the consumers expense.

[Bronx2245]

It was a better business move for Loma to get a belt vs Kambo, and then fight Davis. There was way more money in it. Yeah, it left Shakur with no move except for crying in his T Shirt that Loma is ducking him. Is it really a duck when you choose the higher profile bigger money fight? Shakur should have rolled the dice vs Haney

The problem with your argument was that Loma had no way of knowing that Floyd and Tank would part ways at the time. They never mentioned him until Tank went in his own! Shakur was in the same stable as him, and he chose Kambo! Navarrette was in the same stable, and he chose Berinchyk! At the present time, Loma still has no guarantee to fight Tank!

[Bronx2245]

Just wanted to point out you're making a major assumption here. You are assuming if people are ducking Shakur, it is because he is as you put it " that good ".

The WBC went down the list to find someone to fight Shakur for the title! Pitbull, Zepeda, and Frank Martin all swerved Shakur! Only Martin got a title shot, so no excuses! Loma and Navarrette are Top Rank fighters, and chose not to fight Shakur! If you can’t see something wrong going on, then I have to assume you haven’t been a boxing fan for very long?

[Airtioteclint]

His fans got a million excuses but the bottom line is this.

He looked VERY BASIC Vs an opponent especially hand picked to make him look very good.

He took a lot of shots against a weak ass fighter trying to get him out of there and failed. He knows better than to try that against anybody with decent power which is why he was running all night vs de la santos. Put him in vs tank and you can expect the same.

[Smash]

idk when i watch shakur he can come across as a bit of a sulky spoilt brat

i mean at the end of his fight with artem he was blaming everyone but himself, he said he wants the bigger names to 'bring out the best' in him, well artem is a very low ko guy so hes a guy who should bring out the best in u to smack him around the place more, plus guys who are more dangerous and punch hard back leads to skakur being more cautious bringing out his defensive skills more then his offensive skills

i think listening to his interaction with his trainer mid rounds, the trainer was trying to light a fire under him to put more pressure on artem and shakur as replying with stuff like 'hes not landing anything' lol, hes just getting it more like lol

ikd thats what i heard anyway