Shakur Stevenson retained his WBC lightweight title with a unanimous decision over Artem Harutyunyan on Saturday night in front of Shakur’s hometown crowd at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ.
Now undefeated (22-0), Stevenson was a heavy favorite to win this fight and justified that prediction by dominating the fight, particularly the later rounds. Fighting in front of his hometown fans, he and his team had envisioned a big event that would entertain the crowd.
Unfortunately, the fight wasn’t as thrilling as they had hoped.
“It’s kind of hard to prove you’re the best if you don’t have a fighter trying to fight back; he’s just trying to survive,” said Stevenson to the critics who said it was a boring, one-sided fight that saw Shakur land 170 total punches to Harutyunyan’s 74.
Some fans actually exited the arena before the fight was over, a fact Stevenson lashed out at, calling the exodus a premeditated move orchestrated by some who didn’t want to see him succeed.
The lopsided event also resulted in Stevenson getting into a beef with Cam’ron and Mase, who have mercilessly ripped the young star after he lashed out at them on social media.
“I know you don’t want no ATM battle,” said Mase on an IG post after Stevenson posted the Harlem rapper had a “failed [rap] career.”
So where does the young fighter go from here?
To be fair, Shakur has done well on television. His fight on Saturday was the most watched fight ESPN has aired in 2024, averaging almost 1.2 viewers. The last three fights to reach a million on the network have all been Stevenson fights, as well.
Shakur has won titles at 126, 130, and 135 pounds, and the WBC World lightweight champion is currently the second-ranked fighter, per Box Rec, in that division behind WBA lightweight champion, Tank Davis.
Despite these accomplishments, Shakur hasn’t received his big fight against a major name like Tank or Lomachenko.
But should he have to fight one of those two to get the respect he deserves? Ideally no.
But this is boxing, where one fight can make or break a career.
Does he need to go the route of Ryan Garcia and develop a wild alter-ego social media personality to gain notoriety? Hopefully not, as you can see what’s happened to Garica over the last few months.
Shakur has power and great defensive skills, the latter being one of the reasons why many don’t consider him to be an exciting fighter. Being a great defensive fighter always brings critics back to Floyd Mayweather, his detractors reasoning that Floyd’s superior defensive skills overshadowed the excitement of big knockdowns or volume punching.
But Floyd understood, and understands, how the boxing game works both inside and outside of the ring and has mastered it in a way that only a select few have.
Shakur is not Floyd Mayweather, although he could sign a promotion deal with his company as the 22-year-old is a free agent.
But Stevenson has the talent to be a star. Now we have to see if boxing and its fans will give him the proper time and attention to shine.
