Shakur Stevenson might be taking his possibilities of getting an enormous mega-million provide on the free agent market after turning down a large $15 million contract extension from his promoters at Prime Rank.
Bob Arum’s Prime Rank was providing WBC light-weight champion Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) a deal that will have required a minimal of $3 million per struggle, which apparently wasn’t sufficient for him to simply accept.
Potential Suitors and Unsure Future
Shakur’s choices are believed to be between Matchroom, PBC, and Mayweather Promotions. None of them can assure success along with his future, as he’s not seemed good since his win over Shuichiro Yoshino in April 2023.
Whoever indicators Shakur as a free agent will seemingly must high the $15 million that Prime Rank was providing to increase his contract with them, and he won’t be price it.
He doesn’t entertain the followers, and his final two fights in opposition to De Lo Santos and Harutyunyan confirmed he couldn’t beat Gervonta Davis or Vasily Lomachenko with no controversial determination. These fighters are too well-liked for them to be handled in the identical method De Los Santos in his controversial loss to Shakur final November.
A promotional firm ought to solely signal Shakur as a free agent if it’s a one-fight deal, and even then, provided that they’ve an enormous struggle out there in opposition to a killer like Gervonta Davis, Vasily Lomachenko, William Zepeda, or Andy Cruz. Signing Shakur to a long-term deal could be a nasty threat and never price any cash.
Shakur Not Designed for Light-weight
There’s a rising perception that Shakur isn’t minimize out for the light-weight division and could be higher off getting back from whence he got here at 130 or 126. The paydays are smaller in these divisions, however that’s the place Shakur has his finest probability of trying good resulting from his measurement benefit.
Stevenson is just like Adrien Broner, who wasn’t the identical fighter when he moved up from 130 to 147. It’s the identical factor. Shakur’s punches have little pop, forcing him to maneuver across the ring to win his fights.
Final Saturday, Shakur broke the mould aggressively in opposition to the light-hitting Artem Harutyunyan and received a twelve-round unanimous determination on the Prudential Heart in Newark, New Jersey. Nonetheless, Shakur might struggle like that due to Harutyunyan’s lack of punching energy and hand pace. He had the best opponent for him to face and commerce, but he nonetheless couldn’t put a dent on this man.
Gervonta Davis’ assistant coach, Kenny Ellis, commented about Shakur’s incapacity to knock out Harutyunyan. He feels Abdullah Mason would have knocked Harutyunyan out. He’s solely 20 years outdated and was combating on the undercard final Saturday regardless of having proven extra skill to be a crowd-pleaser and a real star.
