Shakur Stevenson Blasts Bob Arum, Claims Top Position Stimulated Job Growth

Shakur Stevenson blasted promoter Bob Arum for his comments in an interview this week, suggesting he had no other options in free agency than Top Rank.

After Shakur's last fight against Edwin De Los Santos in November, he may not have much interest from other promotions as he enters the free agent market after his fight with Artem Harutyunyan on July 6th in Newark, New Jersey.

Defense Style in an Aggressive Age

Shakur feels there will be a lot of buzz about his services as a free agent, but he may be playing himself. Not many promoters would want to spend money on a defensive player with unfriendly fighting style on TVwhich is inappropriate for ratings and may jeopardize the position of the company and broadcaster.

Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs), the WBC lightweight champion, says he doesn't like the way his career has gone down under Top Rank since he moved up to 135. He feels like they should have gotten him fights with Vasily Lomachenko and George. Kambos Jr.

Top Rank may have chosen not to offer Shakur Lomachenko and Kambosos if they heard him highly recommending the PBC, and dropped hints that he is going there when his contract expires. They had to hear how much Shakur was doing with PBC, and any desire they had to include him with one of his biggest names in the 135, killed him.

2016 Olympic silver medalist Shakur, 26, insists he will be an “unknown” fighter and that a fight between himself and Gervonta 'Tank' Davis will be one of the biggest fights in boxing if it happens.

Unfortunately, Shakur doesn't act like a legendary fighter, and Tank Davis doesn't want to fight him because of his very defensive style of fighting.

Defensive fighters are shunned in this era of boxing, especially if they don't have the popularity of mainstream fans like Shakur. The popularity of a small group of ultra-loyal fighters is not enough.

Shakur belongs to a different era where fighters like him were celebrated; fans didn't mind dropping their money on watching guys hit and run. It's bad for a promotional company to use a defensive fighter and risk messing up the deal with their broadcasters, especially when it's as good as gold, like ESPN.

Fan tastes have changed, and they are now spending their money more wisely on exciting action games and ignoring boring ones. If there was a time machine that could take Shakur back to Mayweather's time, he would fit right in, but not in this generation. He is the odd duck.

Unfulfilled Powers and Frustrations at the Top

“I got the best seat in the house. With the freebies, we all know Tank and I are going to be the biggest fight in years to come, and I think any promoter or any person will be a part of it if that happens,” said Shakur Stevenson on Fight Hub TV when asked about his news. being a free agent for the promotion with his contract with Top Rank expiring in his next fight on July 6th against Artem Harutyunyan.

Whichever promoter Shakur signs with, they may regret their decision later because he will never change his fighting style to become a crowd pleaser. Stevenson is already set in his ways, and if he tries to change his fighting style, his opposition will cook him because he is so fragile.

“Bob [Arum] he was basically trying to say, 'Top Rank or nothing,'” Shakur said of promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank in a recent interview in which he suggested that PBC's Al Haymon was not looking to sign new players and that promoter Matchroom was Eddie Hearn had told him. that he wasn't going to pay Stevenson the kind of money Arum was.

If Shakur leaves Top Rank, he could find himself fighting once a year in the PBC on the undercards, because they probably won't risk putting him in the main events and ending their deal with Amazon Prime. As Shakur brings bad ratings, he will be the cancer of PBC.

“He used to put it there that I have no other choice but Top Rank, and 'Go see the market and come back to see us.' And then he said the conversations he and Eddie Hearn were supposed to have had. We don't know if it's true or not,” said Shakur.

Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn actually told Arum that he wouldn't pay Shakur the kind of money Arum has. Hearn won't bet money on a defensive fighter like Shakur on DAZN, with his fights bringing in only a handful of subscribers. Eddie doesn't need that kind of angst.

“I think Bob should just shut up and let the people who run his company run his company because he doesn't even run his company,” Shakur said. “I don't know. I don't count anything. It's a business,” Shakur said when asked if he thought he could return to Top Rank.

“The way they look at it is the same as the way I look at it. If the business makes sense, yes. if the business doesn't make sense, there's no point. I know my worth. I know that in the years to come, I will be one of the most famous players to ever do it. That's my price.

“After I started to grow as I am known by my name, I think we are doing well,” said Shakur when asked if he is happy with the way Top Rank is handling his work. “But when I got to 135, everything started to slow down,” Shakur said.

Stevenson failed to mention that when he moved up to 135, he started praising PBC, making it seem like it was the company he wanted to go to. Shakur only fought twice at 135, and one of those fights was a heartbreaker. Whatever fame Shakur achieved at lightweight, it was short-lived, and he was heavily criticized.

“I thought they could give me the George Kambosos fight like they gave Lomachenko, but they didn't do that. I felt like we could have pressured Lomachenko a little bit to make the fight happen, but they [Top Rank] it didn't do that.

“When I got to 135, I got bigger, in terms of my fame, things changed,” Shakur said.

When Shakur got to 135, Top Rank compared him to a tomato can, Shuichiro Yoshino, then put him in the middle of the big puncher Edwin De Los Santos, and he was bad in that fight. Shakur ran through the night and was booed by T-Mobile fans, who continued to boo him as he exited the ring.

The injury excuse that Shakur gave later did not hold the fans personally, as it was not the first time he had been boring.