“You have two scary guys giving you advice,” Foster told Fight Hub TV. “Hitchens is scary. I don’t know what kind of advice he can give. And Shakur, all he can do is tell him what he would do in the ring.”
Foster feels that Stevenson’s style cannot be simply copied by Ford, especially if the fight becomes physical.
“He doesn’t have the same skills,” Foster said. “He tries to fight like Shakur, but when it comes to distance, when it comes to boxing IQ, certain things … yeah, you can tell him these things, but what does Mike Tyson say? Game plan out the window once he gets cracked in the face.”
The WBC super featherweight champion made it clear that the issues with Ford go beyond normal pre-fight hype. Foster described Stevenson, Ford and Hitchins as a close-knit group working against him behind the scenes.
“Them as a group,” Foster said when asked where the animosity came from. “I think what they wanted was they wanted me to be a group of people running the game.”
Foster then pointed to Stevenson allegedly trying to watch his sparring sessions while acting friendly towards him in public.
“Shakur texts me and talks about, ‘We’re not in the same weight class. Why don’t we save?'” Foster said. “But then you go to Ray Ford and say, ‘I’ll be with you if you fight.’ Then I hear through the wind that you are looking over sparring with me.”
The bitterness toward Stevenson seems deeper because Foster wanted the fight after Shakur moved to 135. Instead of defending the WBC lightweight belt against Foster, Stevenson allowed himself to be stripped after failing to pay the sanction fee before moving to 140, where he later defeated Teofimo Lopez for the WBO title. Foster says Stevenson still owes him that fight.
“If you run, the fans are going to see,” Foster said. “You said you wouldn’t give me an opportunity until I gave Ford an opportunity. That’s not why I’m giving Ford the opportunity, but it just so happens that’s how it came.”
Foster also dismissed the notion that Stevenson’s recent dominance makes him unbeatable.
“It’s going to come down to that fight with me and Shak, if it ever happened, it’s going to come down to who can put it together on offense,” Foster said. “Defense or whatever like sharpness is great, but he’s not an offensive fighter.”
The Houston native repeatedly returned to the idea that he was standing alone against a connected East Coast group of fighters.
“I’m not one of those guys where you think I’m, ‘Oh, you’re teaming up. Let me go find some people to team up with,'” Foster said. “No, I’m a one-man. So, I’m coming at you all one by one, and I’ll knock you down for sure.”
