Shakur Stevenson says former three-division world champion Vasily Lomachenko is “weak” for not accepting an offer from Top Rank to fight him next.
Stevenson maintains that the offer was for the most amount of money that the two-time Olympic gold medal winner Lomachenko (17-3, 11 KOs) would have received in his career, and he says it’s “weak a**” and he would have agreed to it.
Instead of Lomachenko, 35, fighting Shakur next, he’s expected to face for unified lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr. in the first half of next year.
With the Lomachenko fight not a possibility, Shakur should encourage Top Rank to match him against Raymond Muratalla or William Zepeda , provided he wins his match next week against Edwin De Los Santos on November 16th on ESPN.
If Shakur doesn’t want to fight Muratalla or Zepeda, you’d have to call him a hypocrite because he would be showing the same “weak” behavior that he’s labeling Lomachenko as being.
Unlike the 35-year-old Lomachenko, the 26-year-old Muratalla & 27-year-old Zepeda are roughly the same age as Shakur.
Stevenson calls Lomachenko “weak”
“I’m not trying to defend Top Rank, but y’all can’t blame Top Rank for another fighter saying ‘no,'” said Shakur Stevenson to Fighthype when asked why he hasn’t fought Vasily Lomachenko.
“I think it’s some weak a** s**t. If you ask me, it’s weak,’ said Shakur about Lomachenko not being interested in fighting him. I can’t do s**t about it. I just got to keep fighting, and hopefully, after I get this belt, if he [Lomachenko] ain’t got a belt, he’ll want to get a belt.”
Considering that Lomachenko’s age, lack of size, and the fact that he’s coming off a controversial loss to Devin Haney last May, can you blame him for not being interested in fighting a defensive artist like Shakur?
If Shakur was the type of fighter that stood in the pocket and actually fought, Lomachenko might be willing to fight him, but he’s a guy who has a lot of negatives about the way he fights.
Shakur’s negatives:
- Southpaw
- Not popular
- Runner
- Counter-puncher
- Defensive fighter
“This is my second fight at 135. I don’t see it going on and on and that I don’t get a chance to fight that guy,” said Shakur. “Honestly, I think me and him [Lomachenko] can be next. That could be a fight that happens next, unless he really do go for George Kambosos.”
Instead of Shakur whining about Lomachenko not fighting him, he needs to call out Raymond Muratalla and show the fans that he can beat him. Muratalla would be a good test for Shakur’s skills to show if he’s improved since losing to Robeisy Ramirez in the 2016 Olympics.
As a pro, Shakur has fought a couple of washed-up old guys, Oscar Valdez & Jamel Herring, but no one else worth mentioning. If Stevenson fought Muratalla, that would be a fight that boxing fans would get excited about, and it would enable him to brag about it afterward if he wins.
Of course, if Shakur loses, it would prove that he was never the fighter that fans thought he was, which is what many of them already suspect.
Shakur believes Loma will fight him
“Lomachenko don’t strike me as a guy that wants to fight an easy fight like Kambosos. I don’t know,” said Shakur. “We’ll see. Maybe he wants to watch and see. I think he really thought that Devin was going to come back and fight him. I think that was his game plan. I think that was his plan on fighting Devin again. and I understand why.
“Any great fighter that has a close fight like when Floyd fought Maidana the first time. I didn’t even think that fight was close. I thought Floyd washed him. He ran it back. Let’s say I have a close fight with somebody. I got to run it back with that person because that’ll be mentally in my brain. I’m a champion.
“Top Tank did what they had to do, offering him [Lomachenko] the most money he was ever offered for a fight in his life. I don’t know about offered, but most money he would have made in his career. He turned it down.
“Honestly, it’s kind of disappointing to me, being at the fact that I came up watching Lomachenko. I came up watching Lomachenko, and I always thought he was a fighter who. I was guaranteed in my brain that was going to be my next fight just because I watched him coming up, and he seemed like he didn’t duck nobody.
“He took every fight, and skipped all the easy fights and went straight to the hard fights. So in my brain, I thought it was going to come to fruition. I don’t know. I can’t tell you. I’m not Lomachenko. I can only worry about things that I can control. I can’t control if Lomachenko says no and he don’t want to fight me,” said Shakur.
