Devin Haney revealed that Shakur Stevenson will defend his WBC lightweight title against his past knockout victim, Zaur Abdullaev, on July 6th at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
If what Haney says is true about Shakur (21-0, 10 KOs) defending his WBC belt against #7 Abullaev (19-1, 11 KOs), it would be a disappointing choice, given that there are many available contenders like Raymond Muratalla, Andy Cruz and Edwin De Los Santos for him to fight
Haney knocked out Abdullaev in four rounds in 2019 in a mismatch. Since then, Abdullaev has won his last eight fights against beatable opposition, defeating 39-year-old Dejan Zlatičanin and 38-year-old Jorge Linares.
Haney points out that Shakur talks a lot but then fights “nobody” of note, just looking for a match without proving himself.
Devin says he’d like to see Stevenson give Edwin De Los Santos a rematch to prove to fans that his poor performance against him was due to an injury and not because he lacked the talent.
De Los Santos is someone that Shakur should be fighting again because his performance against him left a dark stain on him with fans, who feel he fought scared, running around the ring, and showing no courage.
Many boxing fans feel that Shakur was given a gift against De Los Santos and should have lost, so he should be giving him a rematch rather than fighting a weaker opponent.
Stevenson’s Next Opponent Questioned
“Shakur says a lot, but we don’t see him fight anybody. We see him calling everybody’s name out. He was just calling my name out to fight me,” Devin Haney said to Fighthype about WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson.
“Just today, I heard he has an opponent already. He’s fighting Zaur Abdullaev, a guy I already beat,” Haney said about Shakur’s next fight on July 6th at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. “So, he’s going backward.”
It’s a big-time backward move on Shakur’s part if he is fighting Abdullaev because it looks bad that he’s fighting Haney’s former knockout victim. What’s even worse is Shakur isn’t facing a dangerous contender like Andy Cruz, Raymond Muratalla, or William Zepeda.
Calling Out Everyone But Who He Should
“If he was serious and he was hurt in his fight against [Edwin] De Los Santos, then why don’t he go and rematch him and prove to the non-believers and haters? Go fight De Los Santos again,” said Haney. “He’s calling out everybody but the guy he had a bad performance with. He said he was hurt. Well, go rematch him.
“He’s [Shakur] a guy I’m interested in fighting because I want to prove myself, but I want them to fight each other too. They’re waiting around and go fight bums,” said Haney.
