Eddie Hearn says that Shakur Stevenson shouldn\u2019t just be a bigger star in boxing, but in the entire American sports world, and that when he faces William Zepeda on July 12, he\u2019ll have an opponent capable of showing everyone how great Stevenson truly is.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he was from the UK, he would be what we call a national treasure,\u201d Hearn said. \u201cHe would be a superstar. And he should be not just a superstar in boxing, but a superstar of American sport. He\u2019s 27 years of age, he\u2019s a three-division world champion, and he\u2019s never broken a sweat.<\/p>\n
\u201cEric Gomez said it right, comparing him to Floyd Mayweather. I also put him with the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard, Pernell Whitaker \u2014 all of the greats. This is how good this man is. But for greatness, you need a great opponent, and that is William Zepeda. This is the fight where Shakur Stevenson will show everybody how great and special he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stevenson (23-0, 11 KO) has indeed won titles at 126, 130, and 135 lbs, and has on some nights shown a true dominant skill set.<\/p>\n
But on too many others, Stevenson has walked away with clear and solid wins that received major criticism anyway, just because the entertainment value was so sorely lacking, with Shakur perceived as too cautious against opponents like Edwin De Los Santos, Artem Harutyunyan, and Robson Conceicao.<\/p>\n
Zepeda (33-0, 27 KO) is certainly a guy who likes to come forward and throw punches, and a big part of the hope for the fight is what Hearn states, that even if Stevenson is once again too good for an opponent, he\u2019ll be forced to show it in flashier fashion against an action-minded guy like Zepeda.<\/p>\n
Zepeda, 28, is coming off of back-to-back, hard-earned wins over the crafty Tevin Farmer, who was meant to prepare him as much as possible for someone with Stevenson\u2019s style. Stevenson last fought in February, stopping late notice opponent Josh Padley in the ninth round, after which he showed a lot of respect for Padley stepping up for the fight and showing what skills he had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie Hearn says that Shakur Stevenson shouldn\u2019t just be a bigger star in boxing, but in the entire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[14040,10520,25029,1935,4496,49226,163,10511,10522,10521,49229,49227,49087,79,49228,34854,6093,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-107763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-a","9":"tag-bad","10":"tag-be","11":"tag-boxing","12":"tag-boxing-news","13":"tag-compares","14":"tag-front-page","15":"tag-hearn","16":"tag-hook","17":"tag-left","18":"tag-mayweather","19":"tag-shakur","20":"tag-should","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-stevenson","23":"tag-superstar","24":"tag-to","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114520566241777220","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}