By Jim Calfa: Shakur Stevenson appears to be getting an excuse ready for the fans by bringing up Oscar Valdez’s positive test for the banned substance phentermine on Wednesday.
By bringing up Valdez’s positive test, Stevenson, rightly or wrongly, is planting a seed of doubt in the minds of fans if he gets beaten by the undefeated fighter on Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. In other words, if Valdez wins, some fans would wonder whether he was aided by PEDS.
You would hope that Stevenson would take the high road if he loses to Valdez on Saturday night and not muddy the water by bringing up his past positive PED test, and start wondering aloud if he was on something.
That would not only make Stevenson look like a poor sport, but it would put a damper on Valdez’s win.
Stevenson (17-0, 9 KOs) said in an interview that he can’t give WBC super featherweight champion Valdez (30-0, 23 KOs) full credit for his spectacular tenth-round knockout win over former WBC champion Miguel Berchelt last year in February 2021.
“Skillfully, I think I’m the better fighter, a lot faster, quicker than him, and I think that’s going to hurt him in the long run when we fight,” said Shakur to Fighthype about his unification match against Valdez on Saturday.
Valdez has never been beaten, and he’s fought a lot of different fighters, some with power and others with speed close to that of Shakur. Oscar is coming off a less than impressive win over Robson Conceicao last September in Tucson, Arizona.
“He’s going to get in there and realize this isn’t an easy task,” said Shakur. “Oscar Valdez is an undefeated fighter, and he’s going to try his hardest once he gets in that ring.
“You got to prepare for that; you’ve got to be ready if I have to weather the storm. With that victory, I don’t know if I can give him the full credit for it,” said Stevenson about Oscar Valdez’s tenth-round stoppage win over Miguel Berchelt in February 2021.
“He knocked him out bad, and everybody didn’t expect it. Right after that, he [Valdez] got caught cheating in the next fight. After he got caught cheating, he fought [Robson] Conceicao, and he looked like a whole new fighter.
“He didn’t look the same as when he fought Berchelt. Maybe he was on something, and for the Conceicao fight, he had to get off whatever he was on, and it didn’t work.
“I don’t know if I can give him full credit. Was that Oscar Valdez or the drugs he was taking? I’ll never know, but he got caught. He looked great against Berchelt, and then in the next fight, he got caught.
“Against Conceicao, after he got caught, he didn’t look the same. If he wasn’t cheating, he looked good [against Berchelt],” said Shakur.
