Shakur Stevenson found new confidence in himself after defeating the lackluster Canelo Alvarez vs. Edgar Berlanga fight card last Saturday night in Las Vegas. Stevenson feels good about his career potential, and it’s understandable why.
After watching those bouts on the card, injured WBC lightweight champion Shakur took to social media to predict that he would go down as “one of the greats” in boxing.
Shakur won’t go down as one of the greats, but you can understand why he would get that idea after seeing four of the main fights on the Canelo-Berlanga card. It was like watching a car crash on the side of the road.
The Canelo-Berlanga card will make any halfway decent fighter feel good about themselves because virtually every fight on the expensive $89.99 card was mediocrity. The co-fight between WBA middleweight champion Erislandy Lara and Danny Garcia was one of the worst fights in recent memory.
My honest takeaway from watching the fights tonight is I’m so cold about this box (things) that I’m going to go down as one of the greats and one of the best to tie them up. I’m at a very, very, very high skill level, and these fighters can’t beat me 😤 #ChasingGreatness,” Shakur Stevenson tweeted Xpumping himself up after winning the Canelo Alvarez vs. Watched Edgar Berlanga event last Saturday night.
Shakur will likely lose his next fight to William Zepeda in early 2025 and then be eliminated in the rematch. Once that happens, promoter Eddie Hearn will wash his hands of Shakur and move on. In other words, there won’t be a Joshua-like rebuild for Shakur like Hearn did with Anthony Joshua. It’s too expensive.
Since moving up to 135 in 2023, Shakur has experienced hand issues, indicating that he lacks the physical tools to fight fighters in this weight class. Because of his lack of power, Stevenson has to load every shot with maximum power, and his hands are too brittle to do so.
The obvious solution to the problem would be for Shakur to return from where he came at 130 or 126, but he has outgrown both of those weight classes. He was always a weight bully for featherweight and super featherweight from the jump, but now he can no longer melt down to those divisions without missing weight.
Last updated on 15/09/2024
