Each Thursday right here at FightHype, boxing followers collect round my bulbous, bulging sack in anticipation of an Ol’ Trustworthy cash shot of gooey, salty fact. This Thursday is not any totally different. So, put your goggles on and cinch up your plastic poncho, right here it comes. This week, now we have feedback/questions concerning Shakur Stevenson and what boxing must do for its personal good.
What Boxing Wants
I assumed PBC was headed down the correct path at one level. However it seems they set a harmful precedent that may be duplicated with an extra quantity of capital that they might solely dream of. His “excellency” is making the PBC enterprise capital appear like a welfare program.
Most pundits will blame the trendy standing of boxing on Floyd Mayweather. Granted, Floyd took low danger, excessive reward fights as soon as he turned 30. However previous to that he was taking up all comers. Do you assume any of those present fighters would’ve fought the likes of Genaro Hernandez, Angel Manfredy, Jesus Chavez, Diego Corrales and Luis Castillo earlier than they made an enormous payday? Heck No! The underside line is that the fights earlier than the payday issues. Guys are getting paid for preventing nobodys they usually’re getting the massive payday earlier than preventing a number of stay canine.
Fighters should take challenges contained in the ring and present their ability and toughness to realize that respect and construct that viewers. Promoters have to get again to the fundamentals and begin filling up these ballrooms and auditoriums. Let the prospects turn into contenders, let the contenders turn into challengers, and let the challengers turn into champions. These days, fighters are going from prospect to challengers in a single day.
I keep in mind once I used to go to combat events. Everybody knew the fighters headlining the primary occasion and co-main occasion. In as we speak’s day and age once I go to combat events, I’m at all times being requested have you ever ever heard of this man? The thrill merely isn’t there. When his “excellency” stops tricking off the funding fund. Simply perhaps issues will return to regular or perhaps one other sugar daddy promo firm will come up.
When do you assume boxing will get again to the fundamentals and have fights which can be significant for up and coming fighters? Is the one method up, down? Does boxing want a tough touchdown to get again to relevancy?
– Na’-il Rahman
Hey Na’-il.
I can’t disagree with something you’ve mentioned.
I’ve mentioned it earlier than and I’ll say it again– boxing wants a significant crash that forces all promoters, boxing corporations, and fighters to lastly understand that they should work collectively. As a distinct segment sport that’s turning into increasingly of a distinct segment as time goes on, it’s crucial for boxing to work collectively in constructing and re-building the game. There’s simply not sufficient fan help there anymore for all of those corporations to be preventing for scraps, with out it turning into dangerous to the game as a complete. Boxing must cease grabbing at fast cash and get right down to the intense work of making the rising tide that can carry all their boats. And I believe that can solely occur when these individuals are dealing with precise chapter and the intense actuality that they are going to all be out of a enterprise in the event that they don’t get their asses shifting. The one purpose I’d contemplate supporting Turki Alalshikh’s and Saudi Arabia’s prominence within the sport is as instruments to facilitate that crash– which simply might occur if boxing individuals hold handing over increasingly of the game to them. So, yeah, we most likely have to burn down the boxing village to save lots of the boxing village.
WTF, Shakur?
Hello Paul.
I’m not going to lie, I’m now a full-blown Shakur Stevenson hater. I wasn’t one till yesterday when it was introduced that he’d be preventing Joe Cordina subsequent in Saudi Arabia. I can cope with a fighter who’s safety-first within the ring and one who’s annoying exterior the ring. I can respect fighters for having their very own personalities and enterprise methods. What I can’t tolerate is a hypocrite and, even worse, a hypocrite who laughs on the public that he wants to purchase his fights. Shakur turning into a free agent, speaking all that shit, after which selecting a WORSE opponent than what he had below Prime Rank is pungent bullshit, however then he has the by no means to inform followers on social media to go fuck themselves as a result of he’s getting that bag with the Cordina combat? Please. This child can go fuck himself. From this level ahead, no matter he’s doing, I ain’t watching.
– Clyde
Hey Clyde.
Shakur Stevenson is a case examine in why some fighters have to have good public relations individuals and the self-discipline to remain out of the general public eye as a lot as attainable. The child is simply an unlikable kind with a very grating character and a raging case of entitlement. And what he fails to see and perceive is that a lot of the derision geared toward him is of his personal doing. He, alone, controls how he performs within the ring and the way he acts exterior of it. His social media mood tantrums and extreme whining have made him a boxing punchline amongst followers and media, particularly juxtaposed towards the dearth of fireplace he reveals within the ring. The man simply doesn’t get it, even when his good friend/mentor Terence Crawford– who additionally doesn’t get lots in relation to public relations– tries to set him on the correct path, at the least by way of his ring work. Shakur simply has too many enablers round him to be pressured into studying his classes. He’s celebrating the cash he DOES make, however fails to comprehend how way more he may make by making some tweaks to his sport and to his social media presence. If he desires to discover ways to do all this proper, he want look no additional than to the highest of his personal division and Gervonta “Tank” Davis.
As for his combat with Cordina? It sucks. It’s a cash seize. It’s a present from Turki and Eddie Hearn to get an American identify into the Saudi cabal.
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