The response was immediate.
One fan accused Stevenson of talking about big fights without taking steps to make them happen.
“The f***** point is when are you ??? You ran to zuffa to duck Skok ??? You didn’t want the smoke with Devin wtf you wait for the right time it makes sense to fight now you try hard to keep that 0,” the critic wrote.
Shakur either doesn’t really get it, or he’s doing some masterful PR damage control to keep his name in the mix with the division’s elite.
If Dana White runs Zuffa Boxing by the UFC playbook, a league-like format completely changes the game. In that world, you don’t call out Top Rank or Matchroom fighters because you’re locked in a closed ecosystem. The UFC isn’t cross-promoting with Bellator or PFL to make superfights, and they aren’t going to send their prized asset to fight on a rival network under another promotional banner.
If Shakur truly thinks he can just collect a massive Zuffa paycheck and still easily land Gervonta Davis, Devin Haney or Teofimo Lopez, he’s in for a rude awakening. Those promotional walls are thick, and Dana White isn’t known for playing nice with traditional boxing promoters.
Right now, Shakur still talks like an independent contractor who can dictate his own path. But if Zuffa is building a league, he’s just traded that independence for a corporate structure. He may find himself trapped in a gilded cage, completely insulated from the very legacy-defining fights he claims he wants.
If the UFC model is the blueprint, it guarantees financial security but risks total isolation from the wider boxing world. By the time he finishes his tenure and realizes the massive cross-promotional fights are permanently off the table, the physical attributes that made him a four-division champion may already be gone.
