Shakur Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs) is coming out of his short-lived retirement to make his first defense of his newly won WBC lightweight title against a still-to-be-determined opponent on July 6th at the Prudential Center in New Jersey.
Zepeda: A Risky Choice?
“We will see if Shakur Stevenson still wants the smoke after William Zepeda fights this Saturday at the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas,” said promoter Oscar De La Hoya on X, looking to set up the unbeaten Zepeda for a world title shot against Shakur after his clash this Saturday night against Maxi Hughes on DAZN.
“Hey, Shakur, you say that nobody wants to fight you. Well, check out William Zepeda on Saturday night on DAZN. He’s begging to fight you,” De La Hoya continued. See you then.
Dan Rafael reports that the 26-year-old Shakur will fight on July 6th, and Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is pushing for #1 WBC-ranked contender William Zepeda (29-0, 25 KOs) to be his challenger. It’ll be interesting to see if Top Rank takes De La Hoya up on his offer of using Zepeda as Shakur’s opponent for July 6th.
They likely have someone else in mind, someone he’ll look good against. Shakur would have problems against a pressure fighter like Zepeda, making it likely that he would fight safety-first to keep from getting knocked out.
The De Los Santos Debacle
After the horrible performance, the 2016 Olympic silver medalist Stevenson turned in his last fight on November 16th against Edwin De Los Santos at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas; he can’t afford another effort like that again.
Stevenson ran around the ring for 12 rounds, using his step-back approach all night, causing the fans at ringside to boo him nonstop from round four to the end. De Los Santos didn’t help by failing to chase Shakur the way he needed to, but it didn’t matter.
Even when De Los Santos did pursue Shakkur, he couldn’t catch him. It was like he was chasing a chicken around the ring, and there was no way he could catch him.
After the fight, Stevenson hinted about an injury, and his promoter, Bob Arum, said he had two injuries.
The fans would have bought into the injury explanation if this were the first time that Shakur had fought like that, but this is the same way he’d boxed Jeremiah Nakathia, Joet Gonzalez, and Oscar Valdez. The only time Shakur stands his ground is when he’s fighting light-hitting, slow guys with no talent.