BY JAKE DONOVAN
December 7th, 2021
Source: Boxing News 24
Photo / Image: Boxing News 24
By Chris Williams: Top Rank boss Bob Arum has got his sights set on matching Vasily Lomachenko against Shakur Stevenson in 2022. For the fight to happen, Shakur, 24, will likely need to come up to 135 to battle the talented Lomachenko at lightweight. Assuming the former three-division world champion Lomachenko (15-2, 11 KOs) defeats Richard Commey this Saturday night, Arum’s next move will be to put a fight together between Loma and the unbeaten WBO super featherweight champion Stevenson (17-0, 9 KOs).
Arum says he’s going to speak with Lomachenko and Shakur’s management after this Saturday’s fight between Loma and Commey to see if he can put together a deal for a Loma-Stevenson PPV clash.
One MAJOR obstacle that could prevent the Stevenson-Lomachenko fight from taking place in the 2016 Olympic silver medalist Shakur believing he should be the A-side in a fight with Lomachenko, insisting that the two-time Olympic gold medalist come down from 135 to challenge him for his WBO super featherweight strap. Arum Eager To Make Lomachenko Vs. Stevenson For Lomachenko, who has accomplished much more than Stevenson at the amateur and professional levels, it would be a bitter pill for him to swallow finding himself reduced to being the B-side and getting ordered about by the 24-year-old Shakur.
Unless Stevenson is willing to change his stance and come down to earth from planet Neptune or Saturn, the odds of him getting a lucrative fight with the talented Lomachenko are virtually nonexistent. “Lomachenko – Shakur, that’s the fight I want to make,” Top Rank boss Bob Arum said to World Boxing News on Tuesday. “I think that’s a great fight. Whether it’s at 135 pounds or 130 or at a catchweight, I don’t need it for a title.” Arum must know by now that the fight that Stevenson wants is against Oscar Valdez, NOT Lomachenko. The real money for Shakur is in a pay-per-view fight against the unbeaten WBC super featherweight champion Valdez (30-0, 23 KOs).
The boxing public would be willing to purchase a fight between Stevenson and Valdez on ESPN PPV, but not likely Lomachenko-Shakur. Without a major star like Teofimo Lopez, Lomachenko ISN’T a pay-per-view fighter, and, of course, Stevenson isn’t either. With Shakur’s dull fighting style, a fight between him and Lomachenko isn’t likely to sell more than a small handful of fights on PPV.
The four-year professional Stevenson is still an unknown in the eyes of the casual boxing fans in the U.S, and it’s way too early for him to be fighting on PPV without the help of a big name like Teofimo, Ryan Garcia, or Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis. ‘ “Loma – Shakur is a major pay-per-view fight,” Arum continued. “Valdez – Navarrete is a great Hispanic attraction. “If I’m fighting Lomachenko he’s coming to fight for my belt, so it would be at ’30,” Stevenson said.
Valdez Vs. Stevenson Fight Being Marinated Arum is planning on having former two-division will champion Emanuel Navarrete (35-1, 29 KOs) come up from featherweight to challenge Oscar Valdez for his WBC 130-lb title in early 2022.
The way the 30-year-old Valdez looked in his last fight against Robson Conceicao last September, Oscar will lose that fight unless there’s the same wacky scoring that we saw in the Valdez-Conceicao clash. Shakur understands that Arum isn’t in a hurry to feed Valdez to him and he’s not pleased. He wants the fight with Valdez next, not a tough clash against Lomachenko that he could lose. It looks like Arum is going to take his time before making the fight between Valdez and Stevenson, and it may not happen. Valdez is too shaky to be counted on to beat Navarrete, and Stevenson’s boring pull-back style of fighting will be solved immediately by Lomachenko. If Chris Williams was the one calling the shots at Top Rank, he’d forget about matching Valdez against Navarrete and Stevenson with Lomachenko because those guys aren’t good enough to win those fights. Instead, I’d throw a bunch of money at Valdez and Shakur and get them in the ring now in a sink or swim match.
Vasily Lomachenko taking a risky fight against Commey on Saturday
Lomachenko has a risky fight this Saturday night on ESPN against former IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey (30-3, 27 KOs) at Madison Square Garden in New York.
As we saw in Lomachenko’s loss to the welterweight-sized Teofimo Lopez in October 2020, if he’s not 100% healthy, he’s mortal. But provided that Lomachenko is injury-free, he’ll pick the 34-year-old Commey apart and force him to quit.
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