Why Shakur Stevenson Believes ‘Neutral’ Terence Crawford Is Rooting for Him This Weekend

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JUNE 12: Shakur Stevenson arrives for his WBO junior lightweight interim title fight against Jeremiah Nakathila at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas on June 12, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Stevenson won the vacant title by unanimous decision. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images)

Despite being a -350 favorite, a Stevenson win won’t be easy considering Herring will have a size advantage and is coming off an impressive victory this past spring when he beat up former two-division champion Carl Frampton. Herring (23-2, 11 KOs) and Stevenson (16-0, 8 KOs) have trained together in the past and, not surprisingly, share some of the same friends. It’s actually made for a combustible build-up with Herring clowning those looking to crown Stevenson as the next big thing in American boxing.  

“They’re making Shakur out to be the future superstar, but again, maybe he will be a future star in his own right, but right now, we’re focusing on the now,” Herring said at a September press conference that featured plenty of trash talking. “I still feel like I have things to prove to myself, and I’m just going to go out and do what I have to do.”

Herring’s right that Stevenson is a future star. He’s charismatic, brilliant at avoiding punches, and has positioned himself to be one of the biggest names in the game should he keep winning. But future stars are held to a different standard and aren’t allowed to have off-nights. That’s what we saw out of Stevenson his last time out. This past June, he earned a ho-hum unanimous decision against Jeremia Nakathila. Yes, Nakathila entered with only one loss and was dropped in the fourth round, but Twitter was far from impressed since Stevenson was widely expected to wax his opponent. A win’s a win, but style points matter. At least to fans and the media. They’re going to have to start to matter if Stevenson wants to reach the levels he’s targeting. 

“If he’s comfortable just winning fights—he can win a shitload of fights, don’t get me wrong and I don’t really see anybody beating him right now,” says ESPN boxing analyst Timothy Bradley Jr. “But if you want to get to a Mayweather level, say five, six years from now, or something similar to Canelo Alvarez, you’re going to have to put butts in the seats. The style that you have now that’s not going to do it.” 

So is Stevenson—with eyes on bigger intangible prizes than just belts—going into the ring against Herring worried about what kind of performance he needs to deliver?  

“I’m not going in there to impress the fans because I never do that,” says Stevenson. “I’mma impress the people around me and I’mma do what I’ve been doing in the gym. It’s all good, I ain’t tripping. But I don’t think it’s fair for fans to judge me off of one fight when I’ve had several fights where I showed up and looked sharp. And two fights before that I brought boxing back.”

He did. Stevenson was the main event of a Top Rank card that ushered in the return of boxing to the pandemic-darkened sports scene on June 9, 2020. His sixth-round knockout of Frank Carabello was a sight sore for eyes and another signal that Stevenson’s building toward bigger and better since it was his first fight at 130 pounds after vacating the WBO featherweight title. Beat Herring and a huge fight, potentially with Oscar Valdez, awaits in early 2021. Other options Stevenson mentions could be Chris Colbert, although he fights for rival promoter PBC, and Emmanuel Navarette, the WBO featherweight champ who could move up one weight class. But Stevenson would prefer to talk about the next fight after this fight. 

Keep winning, while doing it impressively, and soon enough Stevenson will crack the pound-for-pound rankings. After he does that, his sights are set on being the mythical pound-for-pound king like Canelo Alvarez. Stevenson wants to eventually be boxing’s biggest draw the way the four-division champ, who returns to the ring next month, unquestionably is. Or like Floyd Mayweather used to be when he wasn’t headlining silly exhibitions. So when Stevenson is asked to elaborate what it means when he says he wants to “run” boxing, there’s no hesitation.  

“When people talk about boxing, the No. 1 person they think about is Shakur, you feel me?” says Stevenson. 

So how does he get there? Keep winning because undefeated records matter since guys fight so infrequently. Stevenson, who lacks concussive power, does it by defense, a la Mayweather, and Bradley says he’s easily the best defensive boxer in the sport. 

“This is the type of kid who basically swims without getting wet,” says Bradley. “Which is very hard to do for 12 rounds. The best asset he has is his feet and neutralizing his opponent’s jab. It’s demoralizing fighting a guy like Shakur Stevenson. And he’s a southpaw on top of that.” 

But defense doesn’t sell tickets or hype up an audience. Bradley says that even though Stevenson just might have the best set of skills out of all the excellent young American fighters—we’re talking Teofimo Lopez, Ryan Garcia, Gervonta Davis, and Devin Haney—he’s in a peculiar position without knockout power. While he fights exclusively on ESPN these days and has a fun personality, Bradley says Stevenson needs to do a better job of making his name known, a la Garcia who is a social media sensation. Then there’s the “it” factor. 

“He’s missing that it,” says Bradley. “Fans are not attracted to him like a Teofimo Lopez or a guy like Ryan Garcia. He’s just missing that element. Some guys just have it. Some guys are just born with it, to where people are attracted to you.”

Crawford, arguably the best finisher in the sport, has the skills and sexy undefeated record to run boxing. He just doesn’t have the charisma. Nor does he particularly care about promoting himself. In that regard, Crawford could learn a thing or two from Stevenson.

“Bud crazy. You can tell him certain stuff, but at the end of the day I’m still his little brother so I listen to him more than he would listen to me,” says Stevenson. “But I definitely throw some stuff in there to help him out.”

After their unusual introduction all those years ago, Stevenson invited Crawford to catch one of his fights the next day. Crawford showed up and saw that the kid wasn’t full of shit. From that point on, every time Stevenson would run into Crawford at some boxing event he would talk more smack to the champ. Three or four years after Stevenson got the nerve to talk crazy to Crawford’s face, the two finally sparred. 

“He ended up putting me in my place,” says Stevenson.

That’s what friends are for.