Shakur Stevenson has been strangely quiet since William Zepeda’s victory last Saturday night over Tevin Farmer in Cancun, Mexico. The WBC lightweight champion Shakur (23-0, 11 KOs) wants the Zepeda fight next, but it would be a bad move on his part to seem desperate, which would signal to Golden Boy that he views him as a sure-thing win.
De La Hoya’s Warning
If you’re Oscar De La Hoya, you need to take notice of Shakur’s silence about Zepeda as a red flag. This is a clear sign that he views the Mexican volume puncher as an appetizer to use as a tool to get the mega-payday that he’s been chasing against Gervonta Davis.
When Shakur isn’t confident about beating someone, he dismisses them outright as unworthy or doesn’t mention their name at all. Stevenson never discusses fighters like Andy Cruz, Raymond Muratalla, and Abullah Mason. Those are threats to his reign and the potential for the money fight he’s been on the campaign trail for against Gervonta Davis.
‘Untouchable’ Foes
They are the untouchable class for Shakur, who, despite his bragging about himself, is like a sneaky spider with his selection of opponents. We saw that recently, Stevenson opted to use Josh Padley as his replacement opponent after his hand-picked choice, and 22-year-old novice Floyd Schofield pulled out of their February 22nd fight in Riyadh.
Shakur could have fought the hard-hitting knockout artist Jadier Herrera, but he chose the weak puncher Padley. A guy with Herrera’s power only needs to land solid once to knock out an opponent. So, even if Stevenson is making him miss most of the time, he’ll eventually connect with a bomb to put him to sleep. Hence, Herrera was avoided in favor of the feather-fisted Padley.
Zepeda took too many shots from the very beatable old gatekeeper, Farmer, for him to be seen as a threat to defeating Shakur. Unless the money for the fight against Stevenson is out of this world good, Golden Boy Promotions needs to focus on positioning Zepeda toward challenging Tank Davis for his WBA belt. Shakur is too defensive for William’s style of fighting to be effective.
Last Updated on 03/30/2025
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