LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JUNE 12: Shakur Stevenson arrives for his WBO junior lightweight interim title fight against Jeremiah Nakathila at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas on June 12, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Stevenson won the vacant title by unanimous decision. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images)
Whether it was the confidence of youth or owning a pair of brass balls since he’s a Newark, New Jersey native, when Shakur Stevenson introduced himself to Terence Crawford he didn’t shake the champ’s hand, nor did he ask for an autograph. Stevenson didn’t think the occasion called for any formalities. So he started talking shit.
This was 2013 or 2014—Stevenson, then just a teenager a few years away from becoming an Olympic silver medalist in Rio, can’t remember which year precisely. But he was at a boxing tournament and spotted Crawford, who was beginning his run of dominance at 140 pounds. Stevenson just couldn’t help himself so he bounded up to Crawford and unloaded.
“I told him I’ll beat him up,” says Stevenson. “I don’t know what made me just do that, I just felt like doing that because I knew who he was, I knew he was a world champion. By then I knew he had fought in one of them big fights and I knew he was somebody. So I went up to him and I started talking shit and he started talking shit to me back and telling me like he’ll beat me up. He felt like I was cool and liked the way I approached him.”
Crazily enough, that was the start of a beautiful bond between the boxers that today more closely resembles a brotherhood. Stevenson, one of the most gifted young fighters in the sport, and Crawford, the 34-year-old WBO welterweight champion of the world and unquestionably one of the best pound-for-pound boxers, are boys. They train together and travel together. When Crawford swung by Complex’s Los Angeles office for an interview two years ago, Stevenson tagged along. They’re big brother, little brother. Mentor, mentee. Confidants successfully navigating a clusterfuck of a sport.
But that bond’s taken on a different dimension leading up to the biggest fight of Stevenson’s career Saturday. That’s when the 24-year-old undefeated defensive dynamo at 130 pounds steps into the ring to face Jamel Herring for the WBO super featherweight belt (ESPN, 10:30 p.m. ET). Herring, the 35-year-old ex-Marine and 2012 Olympian whose last loss came the same year Stevenson made his professional debut, trains and spars with Crawford.
So saying loyalties will be tested Saturday night would be a bit of an understatement. Who Crawford is genuinely pulling for is arguably the biggest subplot to a very intriguing and consequential fight.
Stevenson says communication with his big brother hasn’t quite been the same leading up to this one. Which is understandable. Plus Crawford’s training for one of the biggest fights of the year when he takes on Shawn Porter next month. So the conversations haven’t been deep. Crawford will tell Stevenson how sharp he’s looking preparing for Porter while Stevenson tells Crawford how sharp he looks prepping for Herring. Before they hang up Stevenson has to get in one last jab. “I end up telling him like I’ll fuck him up right now and he says he’ll fuck me up right now,” says Stevenson.
“I’mma be real with you. Bud probably going to say a little stuff for the media, but deep down I feel like he knows what it is. He wants me to win.”
The ball-busting between the two that started something like eight years ago is never going away. But turning serious for a second, just as Stevenson starts to explain how this week is war and, yes, loyalties will understandably be strained, his Zoom screen turns black. Someone’s interrupting his interview.
“Damn, this so crazy. Bud calling me right now,” says Stevenson.
Almost always referred to by his nickname, Stevenson’s pretty sure his big brother will be pulling for him come fight night in Atlanta. Herring, who hired Crawford’s respected trainer Brian “Bomac” McIntyre in 2018, has credited Crawford’s support and praised their sparring sessions for helping him become champion at super featherweight after spending most of his career at lightweight.
“I’mma be real with you. Bud probably going to say a little stuff for the media, but deep down I feel like he knows what it is. He wants me to win,” says Stevenson, a former featherweight champion who moved up to 130 last year. “He cheering me on. He can’t do it publicly, But me, how I look at it, I’m a lot closer with Bud than that dude. He’s just around Bud. Me, I’m close to Bud. Bud low-key can’t say it because his team is working with Jamel, but I feel deep down he really want me to win.”
Crawford declined comment, preferring to stay neutral since he’s tight with both boxers.
Despite being a -350 favorite, a Stevenson win won’t be easy considering Herring will have a size advantage and is coming off an impressive victory this past spring when he beat up former two-division champion Carl Frampton. Herring (23-2, 11 KOs) and Stevenson (16-0, 8 KOs) have trained together in the past and, not surprisingly, share some of the same friends. It’s actually made for a combustible build-up with Herring clowning those looking to crown Stevenson as the next big thing in American boxing.
“They’re making Shakur out to be the future superstar, but again, maybe he will be a future star in his own right, but right now, we’re focusing on the now,” Herring said at a September press conference that featured plenty of trash talking. “I still feel like I have things to prove to myself, and I’m just going to go out and do what I have to do.”
Herring’s right that Stevenson is a future star. He’s charismatic, brilliant at avoiding punches, and has positioned himself to be one of the biggest names in the game should he keep winning. But future stars are held to a different standard and aren’t allowed to have off-nights. That’s what we saw out of Stevenson his last time out. This past June, he earned a ho-hum unanimous decision against Jeremia Nakathila. Yes, Nakathila entered with only one loss and was dropped in the fourth round, but Twitter was far from impressed since Stevenson was widely expected to wax his opponent. A win’s a win, but style points matter. At least to fans and the media. They’re going to have to start to matter if Stevenson wants to reach the levels he’s targeting.
“If he’s comfortable just winning fights—he can win a shitload of fights, don’t get me wrong and I don’t really see anybody beating him right now,” says ESPN boxing analyst Timothy Bradley Jr. “But if you want to get to a Mayweather level, say five, six years from now, or something similar to Canelo Alvarez, you’re going to have to put butts in the seats. The style that you have now that’s not going to do it.”
So is Stevenson—with eyes on bigger intangible prizes than just belts—going into the ring against Herring worried about what kind of performance he needs to deliver?
“I’m not going in there to impress the fans because I never do that,” says Stevenson. “I’mma impress the people around me and I’mma do what I’ve been doing in the gym. It’s all good, I ain’t tripping. But I don’t think it’s fair for fans to judge me off of one fight when I’ve had several fights where I showed up and looked sharp. And two fights before that I brought boxing back.”
He did. Stevenson was the main event of a Top Rank card that ushered in the return of boxing to the pandemic-darkened sports scene on June 9, 2020. His sixth-round knockout of Frank Carabello was a sight sore for eyes and another signal that Stevenson’s building toward bigger and better since it was his first fight at 130 pounds after vacating the WBO featherweight title. Beat Herring and a huge fight, potentially with Oscar Valdez, awaits in early 2021. Other options Stevenson mentions could be Chris Colbert, although he fights for rival promoter PBC, and Emmanuel Navarette, the WBO featherweight champ who could move up one weight class. But Stevenson would prefer to talk about the next fight after this fight.
Keep winning, while doing it impressively, and soon enough Stevenson will crack the pound-for-pound rankings. After he does that, his sights are set on being the mythical pound-for-pound king like Canelo Alvarez. Stevenson wants to eventually be boxing’s biggest draw the way the four-division champ, who returns to the ring next month, unquestionably is. Or like Floyd Mayweather used to be when he wasn’t headlining silly exhibitions. So when Stevenson is asked to elaborate what it means when he says he wants to “run” boxing, there’s no hesitation.
“When people talk about boxing, the No. 1 person they think about is Shakur, you feel me?” says Stevenson.
So how does he get there? Keep winning because undefeated records matter since guys fight so infrequently. Stevenson, who lacks concussive power, does it by defense, a la Mayweather, and Bradley says he’s easily the best defensive boxer in the sport.
“This is the type of kid who basically swims without getting wet,” says Bradley. “Which is very hard to do for 12 rounds. The best asset he has is his feet and neutralizing his opponent’s jab. It’s demoralizing fighting a guy like Shakur Stevenson. And he’s a southpaw on top of that.”
But defense doesn’t sell tickets or hype up an audience. Bradley says that even though Stevenson just might have the best set of skills out of all the excellent young American fighters—we’re talking Teofimo Lopez, Ryan Garcia, Gervonta Davis, and Devin Haney—he’s in a peculiar position without knockout power. While he fights exclusively on ESPN these days and has a fun personality, Bradley says Stevenson needs to do a better job of making his name known, a la Garcia who is a social media sensation. Then there’s the “it” factor.
“He’s missing that it,” says Bradley. “Fans are not attracted to him like a Teofimo Lopez or a guy like Ryan Garcia. He’s just missing that element. Some guys just have it. Some guys are just born with it, to where people are attracted to you.”
Crawford, arguably the best finisher in the sport, has the skills and sexy undefeated record to run boxing. He just doesn’t have the charisma. Nor does he particularly care about promoting himself. In that regard, Crawford could learn a thing or two from Stevenson.
“Bud crazy. You can tell him certain stuff, but at the end of the day I’m still his little brother so I listen to him more than he would listen to me,” says Stevenson. “But I definitely throw some stuff in there to help him out.”
After their unusual introduction all those years ago, Stevenson invited Crawford to catch one of his fights the next day. Crawford showed up and saw that the kid wasn’t full of shit. From that point on, every time Stevenson would run into Crawford at some boxing event he would talk more smack to the champ. Three or four years after Stevenson got the nerve to talk crazy to Crawford’s face, the two finally sparred.
“He ended up putting me in my place,” says Stevenson.
That’s what friends are for.