Shakur Stevenson‘s start to his new promotional pact and thus the next chapter of his career has suffered a false start.
The defensively-elite American was set to defend his WBC Lightweight World Title against Joe Cordina on the undercard of Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol Riyadh Season event on October 12 in Saudi Arabia but suffered a torn tendon in his hand during sparring.
Stevenson had come under fire from some fans for the matchmaking against Cordina, who is a two-time super-featherweight champion but coming off a loss.
He told Cigar Talk that he didn’t listen to the feedback and that it was all about the money.
“I really ain’t care. I wasn’t really listening to the name, I was really hearing money. When I heard the money, I was like s**t you can name anybody, sign me up. Truthfully, I ain’t really pay no mind to it.”
With that said, the 27-year-old doesn’t foresee the fight being rescheduled and instead believes he will return in February of 2025 to face number one contender William Zepeda.
“I think it’s a lingering injury but like I said it’s God’s plan. Now is just time to heal up, time to change things around for my hands. We should be back in February though. February should be the time we back and we should putting on a clinic versus Zepeda.”
Asked his first reaction to the injury, Shakur said he considered fighting through it.
“Honestly, I was gonna fight through the s**t. Shoutout to my family and people around me that care about me cause I was like ‘f**k it I’m gonna fight through that s**t, go cook this n***a, if I gotta beat him with one hand I’ll beat him with one hand.’
But my family told me take your ass to that motherf***ing doctor to see what’s wrong with it. The doctors ended up making an executive decision on that.”
Upon signing with Matchroom, Stevenson’s hit list was revealed to be Cordina, Zepeda and then Gervonta Davis – fans will hope this recovery doesn’t put that mega fight any further.
