By Adam Baskin: Shakur Stevenson reveals that he was offered a meager 75/25 split from Devin Haney for a fight, which he not surprisingly rejected on the spot.
Since then, the talented former two-division world champion Shakur (20-0, 10 KOs) hasn’t heard a thing from Haney. Was Devin serious with his 25% offer to Shakur?
You can argue that this is a fake offer, allowing Haney to tell the fans, ‘Well, I tried, but Stevenson priced himself out, wanting too much for the fight.’
The fact that Haney (30-0, 15 KOs) has vanished without a trace is a strong indication that his offer to Stevenson was pseudo/fake one to give the four-belt lightweight champion cover so he can go back to his fans with an explanation on why he’s choosing not to fight his WBC mandatory challenger.
“I don’t think I’m the A-side, I just know my worth, and 25% ain’t it. I didn’t turn the fight down; that was supposedly the first offer, haven’t heard nothing since,” said Shakur Stevenson on social media about an offer he received from Devin Haney.
Have you ever seen such a fake attempt to make a fight like the one Devin is using? This is a classic example of a duck by a champion by giving a challenger a lowball offer and then moving on without making a second offer.
That right there tells you that Haney had zero intention of fighting Stevenson because if he were serious, there would have been a secondary offer.
When Haney was negotiating with George Kambosos Jr, he was like a pitbull, persisting in the talks so that he could get the fight against the former unified lightweight champion. You practically had to pull Haney off of Kambosos because he was obsessed with making that fight.
Kambosos Jr was a vulnerable belt-holder, who some boxing fans had labeled a paper champion that stumbled onto his belts by winning them against an injured, sickly, weight-drained Teofimo Lopez in 2020.
Haney was eager to give Kambosos Jr a rematch after beating the flawed former champion last year.
Interestingly, we haven’t seen the same enthusiasm from Haney to give Vasily Lomachenko a rematch after his controversial win over the former three-division world champion last May. Is Haney a craven coward or what?
Some would say that Haney is showing cowardice in battle by running away from the frontlines rather than staying in there and fighting Lomachenko again to show that he’s the better soldier or the two.
Now, we’re seeing Haneey once again surrender with a lowball offer made to Shakur. Shouldn’t Haney be stripped of his undisputed lightweight title? This writer thinks he should because he’s stalling out the division, holding his belts hostage.
Stevenson is the more accomplished fighter, having won a silver medal in the 2016 Olympics in addition to his two-division world titles.