WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson trains for his title defense against the unbeaten Floyd Schofield on February 22 in Riyadh. Fans are curious if Shakur, 27, can make it through training camp without a relapse of his injured right hand.
Hand heal?
Shakur hurt his right hand in training for a title defense against Joe Cordina on the October 12th card. The fight was cancelled, and it will be Shakur’s first since the surgery.
If Stevenson’s surgically repaired right hand breaks during the Schofield fight, he will be forced to move around the ring as he did against Edwin De Los Santos in their fight on November 16, 2023.
Assuming Stevenson does make it through training camp without his hands falling apart, he has a tough fight against the 22-year-old Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs). This guy can punch, is aggressive, and sees this fight as a way to put himself in a position to fight Gervonta Davis.
Shakur should look good in this fight as he excels on Turki Al-Shiekh’s loaded Riyadh card. His fight with Schofield was buried under four other fights on the card, indicating that he had lost status after two lackluster performances against Artem Harutyunyan and Edwin De Los Santos.
Schofield has no experience against world-level opposition during his short career, and some fans believe the only reason he gets the title shot against Shakur is because his father talked him into the match on social media.
Schofield has been ranked highly by the World Boxing Association for beating fluff opposition, but he doesn’t rate a top 15 ranking in true terms. In his last fight on November 2nd, Floyd struggled to beat traveling companion Rene Tellez Giron.
Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) needs to impress against Floyd Jr., who is 22, to win back the fans he lost after his last two fights against De Los Santos and Harutyunyan. Many people gave up on Shakur and considered him a typical runner after those two fights.
Stevenson has fought like this since turning pro after being beaten by Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez in the 2016 Olympic finals. Some naive boxing fans hoped Shakur would develop. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The saying goes: ‘A tiger cannot change its stripes.’
Newark native Shakur simply doesn’t fit into this modern boxing age. He belongs to the Mayweather era in the 1990s before the Internet era. These days, fans have little patience for boring fighters running around. You have to entertain.
Schofield isn’t quite as big a puncher as De Los Santos, but he’s still dangerous and young. He will try everything to knock out Stevenson to position himself for a fight against Gervonta Davis.
8 weeks out 📸 @ShakurStevenson pic.twitter.com/kVFaJGMV9J
— Shot By Zax📸 (@ShotByZax) January 2, 2025
