Fannon starts this one with respect, and that is what makes the rest of it land. He calls Shakur Stevenson a terrific fighter and a very intelligent young man. Then he says the problem out loud: at a certain point you get too smart for your own good, everybody sees the game, and it makes you look terrible. The game, in this video, is weight — and the source Fannon is working from is Robert Garcia, Raymond Muratalla’s trainer. Garcia does not speak live here. Fannon reports Garcia’s account: Shakur wants his WBO-ordered mandatory, Muratalla, at 135 pounds. Not at 140, where Shakur is champion and where the fight was ordered.
Fannon spells out why that one demand bothers him, and it is not the number alone. Muratalla, who Fannon believes was the IBF champion at 135, is moving up because, in Fannon’s words, he cannot make 135 anymore. So asking for 135 is not a neutral site for a meeting — it is asking for a weaker Muratalla. Then Fannon lines the pattern up side by side. With Devin Haney, Shakur wants 145, not Haney’s 147. Yet, Fannon says, Shakur was willing to fight Conor Benn at 147, and willing to fight Gary Antuanne Russell at 140, Russell’s own championship weight. The only two men being asked to shrink are the two men in his way.
He adds two more pieces, both attributed the way the video attributes them. The Zuffa frustration with Shakur, as Fannon lists it, was exactly this — what weight class are you, and why does every opponent have to come to a special one? And Fannon reports what O’Shaquie Foster has said about Shakur calling around to Foster’s sparring partners looking for inside information. Gamesmanship behind the scenes, stipulations on the contract, advantages everywhere except, Fannon argues, in the ring — where Shakur is good enough not to need any of it. His comparison is Canelo Alvarez and the clause that kept Ann Wolfe out of James Kirkland’s corner: money stars get to play those games. Fannon’s point is Shakur has not earned that leverage.
He closes on a simple question built from a host claim — that Shakur’s one fight this year, against Teofimo Lopez, was at 147 against a small 147-pounder, and Shakur had no problem with that weight then. Bradley’s duck warning this week was about the same mandatory, from a completely different angle, and the two videos end up in the same place.
Our take: pick a division and defend it. Champions who stand on business do not negotiate the scale before they negotiate the fight, especially not against a mandatory who is already coming up in weight to challenge them. If Shakur is a 140-pound champion, Muratalla at 140 is the fight. Everything else reads exactly the way Fannon says it reads.
Video credit: Fannon Boxing.
