Shakur Stevenson is riding high off of a statement performance against Mexico’s William Zepeda, though Shawn Porter has advised him to choose his next step wisely.
The technician from Newark listened to criticism pre-fight that his recent outings haven’t been fan-friendly, opting to stay in the pocket with pressure fighter Zepeda.
What played out over the twelve rounds was a masterclass in defence and countering, with Stevenson content to sit on the ropes, slip the challenger’s shots and fire back with his own much more precise attacks.
In the week following the fight, Stevenson called out welterweight contender and recent middleweight competitor Conor Benn to his face on the Ariel Helwani Show. The pair even shook hands and agreed verbally to a fight in November, with the American is utterly convinced that he can jump two weight classes from 135lbs to 147 and beat Benn convincingly.
Speaking to FightHype, Porter used not only his championship experience at welterweight but his recent memory of sparring the Brit to warn Shakur off the fight.
“It shouldn’t be to move up and challenge Conor Benn. He can outbox Conor, he can out-style and all that kind of stuff, but that’s a different punch than the 35, 30, 26 punch. It is. Your body can withstand getting hit on the shoulders, the arms and stuff like that, but a 47 pound punch on your arms and your shoulders, that’s a little bit different.”
Porter then advised Stevenson to continue to target a unification bout with Gervonta Davis, a fight that makes a lot more sense for all parties. Whether or not the timing is right, given ‘Tank’s recent arrest as well as his previous plans to rematch Lamont Roach Jr, remains to be seen.
