Floyd Schofield reacted with amusement to Shakur Stevenson telling the media last weekend that he hopes he doesn’t pull out of their February 22 fight in Riyadh. ‘Kid Austin’ Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs) says Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) is not the type of threat that will make him withdraw.
Schofield says he has “passport issues”, which prevented him from traveling to London to take part in Turki Al-Sheikh’s Ring Award. Otherwise, he would have been there to be seen and given interviews, just like the many other fighters who received their invitations.
One-handed Shakur?
Challenger Schofield doesn’t see WBC lightweight champion Shakur as a dangerous fighter because he’s not a puncher, and he’s right. The Newark, New Jersey native Shakur is a pure 100% boxer who backs down when under pressure and shows no willingness to back down when his opponents have power. Stevenson is probably the most timid champion in the sport and shows no will to fight.
In Stevenson’s last fight against Artem Harutyunyanhe kept his man a lot of the time because the 34-year-old couldn’t hit. But even in that fight, Shakur ran. Therefore, the fans started leaving in large numbers and heading for the exits by the eighth round. It was in Shakur’s hometown of Newark at the Prudential Center.
The Glass Hand
Shakur’s surgically repaired right hand is the real question mark in this fight, as in a video last week he still didn’t use it while hitting the mitts with one of his trainers. I don’t know Shakur’s chances in this fight if that’s the case glass hand falls apart. Schofield is too strong and throws too many punches for a one-armed Kur to survive.
With just 38 days until the February 22nd card, it’s not a good sign that Stevenson still isn’t using that hand. A problem is not going to go away in five weeks. If someone undergoes hand surgery, it takes much longer than five weeks to recover.
“I thought for what? He brings nothing to the table to make a person out of a fight. But this is Shakur. He’s always going to have something smart to say. Hopefully he maintains the same energy on February 22nd, but no one backs down,” said Floyd Schofield. MillCity Boxingwho was responding to Shakur Stevenson saying he hopes he doesn’t back out of contention after his no-show at the Ring Awards in London last Saturday.
“That’s what he’s supposed to say. If you feel the same way about him,” Schofield said while talking a video interview where Shakur says, “Deep down he (Kid Austin) knows he can’t beat me.”
“He is no threat to me. I can’t bash him for saying what he has to do, but I wouldn’t have taken the fight if I didn’t feel that way. He has to self-project because I’m here, I’m training and getting my sparring,” Schofield said of another video of Shakur saying he’s “worried he (Floyd) might not show up.”
