By Dan Ambrose: Shakur Stevenson says he’s going to stay at super featherweight to finish his goal of becoming the undisputed champion after his dominant 12-round unanimous decision victory over WBC champion Oscar Valdez last Saturday night in Las Vegas.
The reality is, Stevenson’s extremely naive dream of becoming the undisputed champion at 130 is an untenable situation, requiring too much time to get the other two champions, Kenichi Ogawa [IBF] and Roger Gutierrez [WBA], to face him.
To get those two champions to fight Stevenson, his promoters at Top Rank would need to throw crazy money at them.
Suppose Shakur was a Canelo Alvarez type of fighter that makes it worthwhile for other champions to fight him by giving them $10 million. In that case, he’d have zero problems getting Ogawa and Gutierrez to face him in his next two fights.
It’s sad to say that Stevenson isn’t a Canelo, and as such, those two 130-lb champions likely won’t be offered enough money for him to buy their belts from them.
That’s what Stevenson would be doing by staying around 130 for another year instead of going up to 135 for much bigger fights that would help his career in the long run.
Few casual boxing fans have heard of Ogawa and Gutierrez in the U.S, and there’s nothing for Stevenson to gain from fighting them other than their belts.
Even if those champions wanted to fight Shakur in a unification fight, the matches wouldn’t happen fast enough before the New Jersey native outgrows the weight class.
If you saw how huge the 24-year-old Stevenson looked inside the ring last Saturday night, you’ll know that he can’t continue to make weight for the 130-lb division for much longer.
Stevenson is a 140-pounder who is still young enough to drain down to 130 to dominate smaller foes. If you can make the weight, why not stay and feast on smaller opposition, right? But these champions aren’t well known.
At last Friday’s weigh-in, Stevenson looked emaciated & sickly, like someone on a starvation diet. Is Stevenson a weight bully?
Now imagine Stevenson continuing to go through that same process for another two years, trying to get the last two champions to fight him so he can realize his vision of becoming the undisputed champion. It’s not going to happen, and it’s foolish to try.
The money those champions would get fighting Stevenson won’t be enough to willingly take a fight that they have little chance of winning.
If you’re the promoter for Ogawa and Gutierrez, you’re better off having him make title defenses for as long as possible against beatable challengers. After watching what Stevenson did to Oscar Valdez last Saturday night, there’s no chance that you’re going to let your fighters Ogawa or Gutierrez anywhere near him.
Unless Top Rank & ESPN throw crazy money at those two champions to make it worthwhile for them to lose their IBF & WBA belts against Stevenson, they would be foolish to fight him.
