Shakur Stevenson hasn’t signed with Mayweather

By Boxing News - 08/21/2016 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: 2016 U.S Olympic bantamweight silver medalist Shakur Stevenson hasn’t signed with Mayweather Promotions, according to Fight News. The 19-year-old Stevenson, who lost to Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez earlier on Saturday, says he’s still a promotional free agent at this time. Stevenson is going to return home and make a decision.

It’s likely that Stevenson will get a number of large offers from the promotional giants. He needs to make his decision wisely because if he chooses the wrong promoter, he could wind up with very limited options for fights.

“I haven’t signed with anybody so I’m going to go home and look at my options,” Stevenson said via fightnews.com.

This has to be seen as bad news for Floyd Mayweather Jr’s promotional company, because it was recently thought by many boxing fans that Stevenson would be signing with Mayweather Promotions after he turns pro. It would have been a great addition to Mayweather’s stable of fighting.

“I came all the way to Brazil to support the athletes of the United States, but while enjoying the events I had one goal in mind and that was to extend a warm welcome to @ShakurStevenson into The Money Team family. @MayweatherPromo connecting true future stars worldwide!” said Mayweather on his Twitter.

By Mayweather saying that he wants to extend a warm welcome to the Money Team family, it made some boxing fans think that he was in the process of signing the 19-year-old Stevenson. Depending on how successful Stevenson’s career winds up being, Mayweather could have inked the next Mayweather like fighter in the sport.

Now it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen unfortunately. Whichever promotional company winds up singing Stevenson, they could have a star that will be like a money bank for them. Look what Manny Pacquiao did for Top Rank. He made the company huge money for around 10 years. Even at 37, Pacquiao is still making Top Rank money with him mostly fighting their own fighters rather than more popular guys from other promotional companies.

“Right now, I’m crushed. I’m disappointed in myself; I knew I could have done better,” said Stevenson via fightnews.com. “Hopefully they will allow Cubans to go to the pros because I definitely want to fight him again.”

It might be better for Stevenson not to fight Cuban Robeisy Ramirez again, because he was struggling against him and definitely outworked in the fight. If Stevenson isn’t able to figure out Ramirez’s style at the amateur level, then it’s unlikely that he’ll do any better in the pro ranks if he winds up fighting Ramirez.

Right now, you have to assume that Ramirez will remain in Cuba, because he didn’t leave his country after he won the gold medal in the featherweight division in 2012, so it’s more likely than not that he’ll stay in his home country. That might be better for Stevenson if he doesn’t meet up with Ramirez again because he would find a way to beat him a second time if they fought each other. Stevenson needs a lot of work to do with his fighting style if he wants to become a big star.