The loudest sound in Shakur Stevenson’s worst month is the silence. In his latest video, Fannon runs through Shakur’s inner circle — Andre Ward, his first manager out of the amateurs; Terence Crawford, his close friend; Claressa Shields, his self-described big sister — and asks a simple question: where are they? Through the collapsed Devin Haney negotiations and the Zuffa exit, Fannon says he has yet to see Crawford jump out and defend Shakur on the weight issue or on being without a promotional home. He has not heard anything from Shields either.
Fannon borrows Floyd Schofield Sr’s line for the frame: Shakur as “an elite fighter by association.” Fannon grants he rates Shakur as genuinely elite himself, but the association point is doing work right now — because the one inner-circle voice that has spoken, Andre Ward, cut against him. Per Fannon, Ward dismissed the whole weight-bully and catchweight argument: if one man has to lose 30 pounds and blow back up by 20 while the other loses 10, that is tough on the first man, not on the second. That is the opposite of the position Shakur took with Haney — 147 was too much, it had to be 144, it had to be 145.
Then Fannon turns to Bob Arum, who he says “let the cat out of the bag” about the real problem: the money. Per Fannon’s account, Arum’s position is that Zuffa Boxing does not want to spend its own money, its model rests on Saudi money fronting the fights, and Saudi Arabia is not putting that money into the sport anymore — so everybody has to adjust. On Shakur’s number specifically, Fannon says Arum called the $15 million ask “just not a doable number,” because nobody makes money on the fight if Shakur takes $15 million off the top.
Fannon’s closing advice lands like a verdict. Stop trying to make Terence Crawford moves, he tells Shakur — Crawford cashed in because he was in the right place at the right time, when the money was there. Shakur is negotiating in the wrong place at the wrong time, against partners who also have to profit. When a fighter only cares about his own number, Fannon says, the other side eventually does exactly what Zuffa did: opens the door and waves goodbye.
Video credit: Fannon International Boxing Channel.
Read next: “I Didn’t Really Beat You, I Outnegotiated You”: Roy Jones Airs Out Shakur’s Haney Conditions
