Shakur Stevenson is scheduled to defend his WBC lightweight title against heavyweight boxer William Zepeda in February in his debut with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing. Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) is coming off hand surgery, and believes he won’t need a tune-up to prepare for the human buzzsaw Zepeda (31-0, 27 KOs).
Hearn believes Shakur will defeat Zepeda without any problem and then face Gervonta Davis in the summer in a lightweight unification fight. He naively thinks Shakur is the best fighter at 135 and is destined to become a global superstar.
There is an excellent chance that Zepeda will expose the former three-division world champion Shakur in the same way that Giovanni Cabrera and Maxi Hughes were recently. Stevenson hasn’t fought a volume puncher like Zepeda during his career, and he’s also never fought someone who targets the body like him.
It could be interesting to see Hearn’s reaction if Shakur fails to live up to his vision. We saw how Hearn muddied the water after his fighter Dmitry Bivol lost last weekend. Will he do the same thing if Shakur gets blown out by William Zepeda in February? I sure hope not.
2020 Olympic silver medalist Shakur might have trouble taking this fight because he lacks offensive tools to match what Zepeda can generate.
Shakur lacks in these areas:
- Low Punch Output: Anemic work rate. According to Compu-box, Shakur averaged 13.6 punches per round during his career. In the fight against Edwin De Los Santos last November, Stevenson landed just 40 punches in the entire 12-round fight. That’s an absurdly low number for any fighter to land in a fight, but it points to Shakur’s imbalance in his game. In other words, it’s all defense and no offense. In comparison, William Zepeda averages 100.2 punches per round. Let him face it. Zepeda throws 86.6 more punches per round than Shakur.
- Under average power: Stevenson has a KO percentage of 50 and has only stopped one fighter in the last three years, and that was Shuichiro Yoshino. Zepeda has a KO percentage of 77, which is outstanding for any fighter. It’s like George Foreman level.
- Inability to fight in the pocket: Because of Shakur’s lack of power and risk aversion, he does not fight in the pocket because it involves exchanges with his opponents. What this means is that Shakur will have to be on the run for three minutes of each round against Zepeda as he did in his fight against Edwin De Los Santos to avoid being knocked down. Unfortunately, it will be difficult for Shakur to win a decision fight like this unless the judges score the rounds favorably.
Hearn Dump Shakur If He Loses?
Promoter Eddie Hearn will have to decide what to do with Shakur if he is defeated by Zepeda. He probably gets a lot of sympathy if he cries because the Americans aren’t buying that and give Shakur a pass like they do with Bivol after he ran off the battlefield in his loss to Beterbiev.
The best strategy would be for Hearn to cut his losses and dump Shakur after his two-fight contract with Matchroom expires. Hearn could match Shakur tough against Andy Cruz or Liam Paro for his second fight and then wash his hands of him after he gets beaten by one of those guys as well.
Shakur does not seem to belong to this generation. It’s like someone from a bygone era who uses an old style and is no longer relevant to the 21st century. It is as if he has been transported from a different era and is completely foreign to the way people fight now.
Last updated on 10/19/2024
