By Allan Fox: Gary Russell Jr believes that Shakur Stevenson is better than Devin Haney & Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and would beat both of those fighters as well as the other top fighters at 135.
It’s unlikely that WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Tank Davis is going to agree to fight Stevenson once he gets out of jail in Baltimore. Tank will likely take a long rest, and when he does come back, he’ll take a safer fight to ensure the money keeps rolling in.
Top Rank promoter Bob Arum recently said that he was going to meet with undisputed lightweight champion Haney to discuss three options he had for one.
Shakur (20-0, 10 KOs) is one of the options. However, there’s been no talk about Haney & his dad Bill wanting the fight against WBC mandatory Stevnson, which likely means they intend on vacating their undisputed 135-lb championship to move up to 140.
If Haney vacates his titles, #1 Stevenson and #2 Vasyl Lomachenko will battle for the vacant WBC belt. That’s a fight that Arum has wanted for years.
Stevenson looked great in his last fight, stopping previously unbeaten Shuichiro Yoshino in the sixth round in a WBC lightweight title eliminator last April to become mandatory for Haney.
“I feel like Shakur, out of all of them, is the nicest. I feel he can fight better than any of them,” said Gary Russell to Fighthype. “When Shakur was at 126, I was throwing his line too. Shakur moved from 126 to 130.
“This is why I like Shakur. Even when someone talks s**t, I still give someone their credit. He’s a young man, he’s developing and went to the Olympics with my younger brother.
‘”He was one of the youngest that would come down there and get some sparring and put some work in. I can respect that. I think he’s better than Devin Haney, I think he’s better than Tank. I think he’d beat Tank, I think he’d beat all those dudes.
“I think he’s more put together. The difference between him and a lot of the other guys is they’re just f**king athletic.
“Intellect over athleticism any day. I’m not saying Shakur is super intelligent with how he puts it together in the ring, but he’s more fundamentally sound than a Devin Haney or a Tank or these other guys.
“He’s more relaxed; he’s in control, whereas Devin and Tank, they’re just competing. They’re just athletic. So it’s different, and that’s why I pick Shakur over them. I give Shakur credit. He at least came down to come and get some good hard strong a** bump [sparring]. Mother f***ker don’t come for that,” said Russell.
