Shakur Stevenson is also fighting expectation as he examines free agency

Just before Shakur’s points win over Artem Harutyunyan, Keith Idec spoke to a number of interested parties within Top Rank, including the three-weight world king himself. Here’s what he found out…

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SHAKUR Stevenson will explore unfamiliar territory immediately after another title fight Saturday night in his hometown. Stevenson will make his first defence of the WBC lightweight championship he won in rather forgettable fashion seven months ago when he squares off against Germany’s Artem Harutyunyan. 

A crowd in excess of 10,000 is expected at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, where Stevenson will headline a card for the third time in the past 21 months.

Most sportsbooks list Stevenson as at least a 25-1 favorite over Harutyunyan, however, which has shifted much of the pre-fight focus to the three-weight world champion’s impending promotional free agency. 

Stevenson, 27, turned down the five-fight contract extension Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. offered him just before Harutyunyan was secured as his opponent for a 12-rounder Sky Sports Main Event will televise in the UK early Sunday morning (1 am BST) and ESPN will air in the United States late Saturday night.

Barring an injury to the durable Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs), who has not postponed or cancelled a bout in seven years as a professional, those five fights would’ve been due within approximately two years, which would’ve made Stevenson a promotional free agent again at the age of 29. 

The 2016 Olympic silver medalist maintains, though, that he is worth more money than Top Rank offered him per fight. Stevenson wasn’t guaranteed a long-sought showdown with IBF lightweight champ Vasily Lomachenko, either, as part of the deal proposed by Arum’s company, also Lomachenko’s longtime promoter.

The Houston-based Stevenson therefore wants to find out how much competing promoters would be willing to pay an accomplished southpaw whose skills and ring IQ warrant consideration for a top 10 pound-for-pound spot. 

Arum wouldn’t disclose the minimum purses Stevenson would’ve earned as part of the proposed package, but the 92-year-old Hall-of-Fame promoter doesn’t think such competitors as Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing or Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions will offer Stevenson more money than Top Rank.

“I was surprised that he turned down the deal,” Arum told Boxing News. “I didn’t think it was a wise decision on his part, but we’ll see. He has certainly lived up to his contract. He’s fought for us for many, many years. And he has never violated the terms of the contract, so we have absolutely no complaints.”

Viewers vehemently complained about Stevenson’s performance in his last fight – a tedious 12-round, unanimous-decision victory over Edwin De Los Santos on November 16 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Stevenson defeated De Los Santos on the scorecards of judges Tim Cheatham (116-112), David Sutherland (116-112) and Steve Weisfeld (115-113), yet he left most fans frustrated because he didn’t engage with the strong southpaw throughout their 135-pound championship bout. 

The Dominican Republic’s De Los Santos struggled to press the action as well and drew criticism for failing to prevent Stevenson from moving around the ring.

Injuries to his left hand and right shoulder affected Stevenson’s training camp last fall, but he underwent physical therapy both before and after he fought De Los Santos (16-2, 14 KOs) and avoided surgical procedures. His win against De Los Santos nevertheless amounted to Stevenson’s second uninspiring performance during a main event ESPN televised in recent years. 

Stevenson previously invited backlash by employing a safety-first approach for much of his decisive defeat of Jeremia Nakathila in June 2021 at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. 

The former WBO featherweight and WBO super-featherweight champ dropped Nakathila in the fourth round and shut him out by the same score, 120-107, on all three cards, yet Stevenson cautiously boxed the heavy-handed Namibian challenger over the final six rounds once Nakathila caught Stevenson with a right hand late in the sixth round of their 12-round fight for the WBO interim 130-pound crown.

The monotonous nature of his win against De Los Santos makes it more important than ever, according to Arum, for Stevenson to entertain while winning convincingly versus Harutyunyan.

“I think it’s a good test for Shakur,” Arum said. “I don’t see anybody really beating him. I just hope that [Harutyunyan] brings out the best in Shakur and we see a really exciting fight. [Stevenson has] gotta put on an entertaining fight. I mean, boxing is a sporting contest, but it’s also entertainment. And if you don’t entertain the fans, then people lose interest.” 

Stevenson senses that he is in a “lose-lose situation” as it pertains to entertaining because he feels he has already proven a willingness to fight from the pocket during dominant wins against former 130-pound champions Jamel Herring and Oscar Valdez and 135-pound contender Shuichiro Yoshino.

He stopped Herring in the 10th round of his first fight after he defeated Nakathila, dropped Valdez in the sixth round on his way to a wide win on all three scorecards in his subsequent bout and picked apart a then-unbeaten Yoshino, whom he dropped twice before their April 2023 fight was stopped in the sixth round.

“I’m so good that the bar is set so high for me,” Stevenson said, “that I feel as though say I go in there and I stand there with this guy, beat him up, but I get hit, too, the main thing gonna be, ‘Oh, well, Shakur gets hit, this, that and the third.’ But then, say I just go and out-box him and make it look easy, then it’s, ‘Oh, well, he don’t take no chances. He don’t take no risks.’ Regardless of however they put it, they’re gonna say something. I remember when I was fighting Jamel, Valdez and Yoshino, a lotta people kept saying I’m flat-footed and just stand in front of people, that I’m not like a mover, and that’s gonna be my downfall.

“And I told people before like if I need to move, I can move, too. I can do it all in the boxing ring. I think that just me being versatile, I can do whatever I want. But, at the end of the day, it don’t really matter what other people think. It only matters what I believe and what I think. They’re gonna twist and turn it and be like, ‘Oh, well, you’re fighting for the fans.’ I am fighting for the fans, for the ones that really appreciate my talent. I’m not like super money hungry. I just love the sport of boxing, so it is what it is. I can’t please everybody.”

Harutyunyan, meanwhile, will fight for the first time since he gave Frank Martin more trouble than anticipated last July 15 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. 

The 33-year-old, Armenian-born boxer took a knee in the 12th round of their closely contested bout and lost 115-112 on the cards of Cheatham and Max De Luca and 114-113, according to Weisfeld.

Stevenson still doesn’t think Harutyunyan (12-1, 7 KOs), a bronze medalist for Germany at the 2016 Summer Olympics, or Martin (18-1, 12 KOs), who was knocked out by Gervonta Davis during the eighth round June 15, are anywhere near as good as him.

“He’s a good boxer,” Stevenson said of Harutyunyan, the WBC’s seventh-ranked contender. “Solid, tough. From what I heard from Frank Martin, he said he was strong. I guess he could present a good test.”

The ever-confident Stevenson added, however, “I look at Frank, and I already know Frank is not on my level. So, I looked at [Martin-Harutyunyan], I watched it and I seen what I needed to see. But I can’t really like take too much from it because, at the end of the day, Frank and me is on two different levels. I’m a lot better than Frank.”

Assuming Stevenson handles Harutyunyan, he will likely be forced to settle for another lower-profile fight than he wants next, no matter which promoter signs him. The two most prominent opponents Stevenson wants to face – Lomachenko (18-3, 12 KOs) and Davis (30-0, 28 KOs) – finally appear ready to fight each other next. 

His other options include dynamic Mexican southpaw William Zepeda (30-0, 26 KOs), the number one contender for Stevenson’s title, and newly crowned WBO lightweight champ Denys Berinchyk (19-0, 9 KOs), who upset Emanuel Navarrete by unanimous decision May 18 in San Diego. Zepeda is promoted by Golden Boy, whereas Ukraine’s Berinchyk is represented by Top Rank.

“I’ve been hearing Bob say a whole lotta like I don’t got nowhere to go and that kinda stuff,” Stevenson said. “But honestly, I feel like I’m in the best seat. I feel like I’m in the best position in the house.

“We could all act like Lomachenko and Tank is such a big fight, but we all know that me and Tank is the biggest fight in the sport of boxing when it happens. And I feel as though me being in the seat that I’m in, I think that everybody in the business should wanna be involved with me.”

Arum and his savvy staff want to remain in business with Stevenson, whom Top Rank has promoted since he made his pro debut in April 2017. That decision ultimately will be up to Stevenson, who hasn’t ruled out re-signing with Top Rank once he assesses his market value after facing Harutyunyan.

“He’s a great talent,” said Carl Moretti, Top Rank’s vice president of boxing operations. “I wish we had him for another five years. They decided not to accept the offer, which he has every right to do.

“No matter if he fights for us or somebody else, I’ll continue to watch him fight. I worked with Pernell Whitaker for a lot of years [while with promoter Main Events]. And watching Shakur feels like I’m watching ‘Sweet Pea’ all over again.”