Shakur Stevenson says that after watching his recent widely criticized performance against Edwin De Los Santos from their November 16th fight, he’s glorifying how he fought, calling it “A testament to how great I really am.”
The 26-year-old Shakur ran from the hard-hitting De Los Santos for twelve rounds, winning a narrow unanimous decision to capture the vacant WBC lightweight title.
The boxing world thinks differently, viewing it as another boring performance from Shakur (21-0, 10 KOs), and seeing him as lacking the courage to ever become an entertaining PPV star.
Shakur is a champion, but he’s going to sit and rot with that title if his promoters at Top Rank can’t encourage the popular fighters like Devin Haney, Vasily Lomachenko, Teofimo Lopez, Gervonta Davis, Frank Martin & Ryan Garcia to want to fight the runner.
“I watched my fight for the first time. Let me stop letting casual fans get into my head,” said Shakur on social media, talking about his contest against Edwin De Los Santos at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“That [De Los Santos] couldn’t touch me with one hand,” Shakur continued. “Boxing on the highest level with one hand is insane and being able to control a really good fighter with one hand is crazy. That [De Los Santos] couldn’t f*** with me on my worst day. My IQ is way too high for y’all. Most people don’t know s*** about boxing. I’m smoking your favorite fighters when the time comes,” said Stevenson.
Shakur’s ego obviously is out of touch with reality, and Top Rank is up against it if they decide to extend his contract after his next fight. There’s a possibility that Stevenson can become a villain type of fighter and have fans want to watch him, hoping he’ll lose.
But as far as entertainment-wise, Shakur will never be an exciting fighter to watch because he uses the three-step retreating method and won’t stand and fight like the interesting-to-watch fighters.
Shakur can become a Mayweather type of fighter, where he brags about himself outside of the ring and then fights terribly boring, safety-first fights. It’s a fencing, amateur style that both use, and it’s hard on the eyes. A fan has got to like fencing to want to watch Shakur fight.
Haney says Shakur worth “3%” now
“He fought like s***, but what do we expect? We knew he wasn’t coming in there to try and take his head off or try to really do anything. He fought like Shakur,” said Devin Haney to Boxing News, when asked about his opinion of Shakur Stevenson’s recent performance against Edwin De Los Santos on November 16th.
This wasn’t the first time that Shakur fought in a boring manner, as he’s done it throughout his career. He ran from Jeremiah Nakathilia and was beaten in the Olympics when he wouldn’t stand and fight against Cuban Robeisy Ramirez in the finals of their fight in 2016.
“The fight [with Shakur] can still happen, but right now, it just makes no sense, and I sent him a contract, I sent him an offer. The fight could have been made, and it would have been much bigger than it is now. It definitely dropped value,” said Haney about his having previously offered Stevenson a 75/25 offer when he was the undisputed lightweight champion and Shakur, a needle, beltless contender with only one fight under his belt at 135 against a fighter named Shuichiro Yoshino.
It’s safe to say that Haney & Shakur will never fight because Stevenson will refuse to face him unless he’s given parity, and he won’t get that because he’s not a PPV fighter due to his boring style.
“3%,” said Haney when asked what Shakur is worth receiving for a fight against him. “It was 5% over there, and now it’s 3%.”
