SAME SKILLS, NEW THRILLS
The Ring: Why does Ali stand out for you? SS: I think it’s because Ali was a heavyweight, but he had the skills of a little guy. He would probably tell you that he watched Sugar Ray Robinson and that Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest, and I can’t take nuthin’ away from his opinion. And the era with Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns, that was one of the best eras I’ve ever seen. The Ring: One thing I’ll put to you on Robinson is that most of what we have in terms of footage is after he’s been at his very best. His welterweight fights – Kid Gavilan, Tommy Bell, the early Jake LaMotta fights – none of them were televised. By the time he’s at middleweight, Robinson is almost 30 years old with 100-odd fights and a lot of wear and tear. SS: Yeah, that must be it. It looked like he was a little bit older. Again, some of the stuff I watched, I’m not saying he wasn’t great. He definitely was great. I just wasn’t a fan of him, I guess. The Ring: What’s next for Shakur Stevenson? I would assume you would want to get back out before the end of the year? SS: Probably not. I got hand problems, so I want to rest. People won’t even know this, but this is a true story: I didn’t want the [Zepeda] fight for July 12. I told them I would rather fight on the Bud-Canelo card. I felt that I needed more time to get my hands back together, but they pushed for it. It was like, ‘You fight Zepeda in July, or Zepeda fights someone else!’ But I didn’t want him to fight nobody else, so it was like, go get the moment. Forget about your hands, just go get the moment. So, now I’m going to let my hands rest for a little bit, allow them to heal up so that when I use them, I can use them at 100%. The Ring: That’s a bit of a revelation, because you were landing big combinations. Were you uncomfortable in the fight?
SS: Shout-out to my hand-wrapper, Rafael Garcia Jr. He did a tremendous job. Floyd [Mayweather] used [Garcia’s] dad as a hand-wrapper. Also, a big shout-out to Russ Anber with Rival, who got us some gloves to wear and protected my hands more. Those guys did a tremendous job with this fight. With rest and recovery, I think it’ll make my hands feel a whole lot better. The Ring: You’re only 28 years old and already a three-weight world champion and a pound-for-pound entrant. What more do you want to accomplish? SS: I used to be a person who loved the titles and the accolades. As I’ve got older, I’m starting to realize that you don’t get as much credit for that stuff as you should. For me now, I’ve switched my mindset to where I just want to fight the best fighters. I want to be in the ring with the best competition available. That’s my goal. I don’t care about undisputed. I don’t care about unified – I’ve unified before. I’ve also seen undisputed champions who I thought were just garbage and trash. They’re not really good fighters; they just got opportunities and took advantage.
Let me tell you why he’s next-level. Let me tell you why he’s the highest level of boxing there is. I came up in the era where Tyson Fury was the main heavyweight. For Usyk to go beat Tyson Fury not once, but twice, I think he’s something different. Oleksandr Usyk is one of the best heavyweights I’ve seen with my own two eyes. A lot of people don’t want to give him that credit. This guy won the Olympics, the World Championships three times, and he’s a two-division undisputed champion. He’s just something that we’ve never seen before, and he’s doing all this at 38 years old. Against Dubois, it was the skills more than anything else. Usyk had him mentally exhausted. You’re in the ring with this guy, you can’t do nuthin’ with him, and he’s touching you anytime he wants to. It got to the point that mentally Daniel Dubois knocked himself out. (laughs) It was just getting worse and worse. The Ring: I’m not going to go too in- depth into the Sugar Ray Robinson controversy that erupted recently, because you addressed it on social media. Can you give me some of the legendary fighters that you are a fan of? SS: You can go there. No disrespect to Sugar Ray Robinson, because he is a helluva fighter with his power and athleticism. I wasn’t saying it in that way; it was more like a barbershop conversation. I’m so competitive and trying to win debates. I didn’t mean that he’s not a good fighter; he’s a helluva fighter, but I do think boxing has evolved. In Robinson’s time, I don’t think boxing was as good as it is in our time. I just feel like certain fighters didn’t pick their hands up and always had their hands down. It’s good to have that shoulder roll, but sometimes you should have your hands up, too. Fighters that I looked at: I like [Muhammad] Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard … I love Sugar Ray Leonard, I think he’s a beast. I like Roberto Duran. I like Pernell Whitaker.
Zepeda had pockets of success when Stevenson was on the ropes.
Tank would have had respect because he’s known him since he was a kid, but when you see Lamont Roach lose to Jamel Herring, it gives you confidence. Lamont Roach is the real deal – he’s the truth – and what helped him in that fight is that he’s a big 130. The 135-pound division fits him more than it fits me or Tank. He’s bigger than both of us. That night was all Lamont Roach. You seen his skills and you’ve seen how good he was. I’m taking nothing away from Tank; he just went up against a good fighter and it showed. The Ring: Your fight against Floyd Schofield fell through earlier this year. He’s since created a stir by blasting out Tevin Farmer in a round, so would you be interested in getting that fight back on? SS: I’ll fight anybody, I ain’t gonna lie to you. (laughs) I know these guys can’t beat me. Me at 100% versus them at 100%, none of these guys stand a
chance against me. The problem with the Floyd Schofield shit is that he’s so disrespectful. He went on social media and lied over and over and over and over … You ain’t gotta do that when you’re in business. If we’re being realistic, I didn’t even have to fight Floyd Schofield. All the people, the higher-ups, were telling me not to fight him. They were saying he sucks, he’s not good, and I said, “Well, he keeps talking, so let’s make the fight happen.” I got the fight done. I talked Turki [Alalshikh] and Eddie [Hearn] into making the fight happen. It felt like a slap in the face when Floyd Schofield started going on social media every single day and lied on my name, saying I’d sent someone to do something to him. It just felt so disrespectful. Boxing is a business, so do you really want to go back into business with these bullshit-ass people? You’ve got to let me think about fighting him again. Maybe if he keeps
The Ring: Who are we talking about? SS: George Kambosos.
doing what he’s doing, we can put something in the contract where he can’t just go abusing my name on social media. Truthfully, I could be suing him, but I’m not about going to court. Let’s see if he can make a real statement. I’m not taking away from the Tevin Farmer win, but I don’t think he got the best version of Tevin Farmer. [ Editor’s note: Floyd Schofield alleged that he was poisoned by Stevenson’s team during fight week, which led to him being hospitalized and the fight being canceled. Schofield later retracted the comments. ] The Ring: What are your thoughts on Oleksandr Usyk after the rematch victory over Daniel Dubois? SS: I think he’s amazing. He’s different.
The Ring: Well, he almost became undisputed, right? There was political stuff going on around the WBC. SS: Devin [Haney] had the WBC regular or something, so [Kambosos] was undisputed, and once I seen that … Like I say, good job taking advantage of the opportunity, but I don’t think he’s a good fighter. So it doesn’t mean as much as it used to. With me, like I say, just put me in the ring with the best. If I end up fighting for undisputed, that would be cool, but I would rather focus on getting in the ring with the best guys that the public think can beat me. That’s what would make me a big, big superstar.
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