Shakur Stevenson’s decision to split with Zuffa Boxing only months after signing and staging a photo-op with Dana White leaves both the fighter and promotion facing daunting questions.
The first is whether Zuffa Boxing, backed by the 60-per cent ownership reach of Saudi Arabia boxing financier Turki Alalshikh, has the stomach to consistently produce the type of high-priced purses elite fighters like unbeaten four-division champion Stevenson and his powerful team will request?
The second is if Stevenson, 25-0 (11 KOs), has overvalued himself?
Two things can be true at once.
In recent conversations with boxing insiders familiar with the Stevenson-Zuffa split, the sides grew dismayed with each other over finances and dragged-out talks that threatened to sideline Stevenson beyond a ticking absence that dates to his impressive victory by unanimous-decision over three-division champion Teofimo Lopez January 31 at Madison Square Garden.
After initial conversations for a super-fight with unbeaten WBO welterweight champion Devin Haney were derailed, Stevenson and Zuffa moved toward a meeting of generational pound-for-pound powers versus Manny Pacquiao that might’ve been featured on the December 11 Anthony Joshua-Tyson Fury card on Netflix from Cardiff, Wales.
The fact that Stevenson was willing to meet recent welterweight title challenger Pacquiao at 147lbs left Zuffa with the impression the 2016 U.S. Olympic silver medalist from Newark, New Jersey, would fight at welterweight so soon after winning the WBO 140lbs title from Lopez.
The error in that assumption was realized when the power-that-be – a role Alalshikh has boasted of being over the past three years – rejected paying eight-figure purses to both co-main event fighters on an already expensive card.
Pacquiao, by the way, is still in contention for a spot on the Joshua-Fury card.
That denial turned Zuffa’s attention to making a fight with Haney, the three-division champion from Las Vegas who bickered with Stevenson over requests to stage the bout at a catchweight of 144 and then 145lbs.
There was also a Stevenson request for Haney to honor a fight-day rehydration limit, something he and his manager father did not want to accept.
While Zuffa officials wondered why Stevenson was dug in on the lower weight for Haney when he hadn’t been for Pacquiao, the Stevenson side languished in training camp, wondering when the expectation of stepping up and funding the bout would materialize.
In addition to Alalshikh’s seemingly unlimited bankroll in supporting so many other major boxing cards and White’s touts that he would make a major splash in Zuffa Boxing’s first year, the Stevenson side grew disenchanted with the delay.
Not only had Zuffa Boxing paid the lesser Conor Benn $15 million to fight aged Regis Prograis earlier this year, it had a golden public relations opportunity to stage a mega-fight in late November after White’s failed takeover of the Joshua-Fury fight to Madison Square Garden.
Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix reported that Zuffa Boxing was further hamstrung by its early claims that it didn’t need to work with other promoters, even though the best options for Stevenson beyond Haney were with Top Rank’s recent lightweight champion Raymond Muratalla and Premier Boxing Champions’ WBA140lbs champion Gary Antuanne Russell, whose brother-trainer claimed was low-balled beneath a $2 million figure that an official floated in a news report.
With no Zuffa signing bonus delivered to Stevenson, his handlers proposed an escape plan, one Zuffa Boxing was pleased to provide given their belief that the 29-year-old had work remaining before becoming a can’t-miss draw.
Stevenson said on a YouTube post announcing his release from Zuffa Boxing that he wasn’t mad at anyone, and that he understands the boxing business.
An individual close to Zuffa Boxing said that while the industry ridicule of releasing a fighter before he even entered the ring for the promotion is embarrassing, the business sense of the move trumps the P.R. hit.
Still lingering is Zuffa’s willingness to consistently fund major fights after years of White being bashed (and sued) for paying his UFC fighters minimally.
Stevenson is forming his own promotional company and will likely explore marquee bouts at 140lbs and lightweight until he feels fully ready for a move to 147 and the dates with Haney and WBC champion Ryan Garcia as he has said he’s wanted.
Since Zuffa Boxing is no longer in play, however, that forces Stevenson to revisit DAZN, which streams Top Rank, PBC, Matchroom, Golden Boy and Queensberry fights.
What he should expect, however, is a real-estate phrase also circling now: Today’s market is not yesterday’s market.
