Fannon starts this update with a confession: Shakur Stevenson is one of his favourite fighters, and he complains about everybody’s business moves, not just Shakur’s. Then he calls what is happening to Shakur by its name — karma. A man who bounced around like the baddest man on Earth, Fannon says, played too many games for too long and now sits between a rock and a hard place, with two choices and both of them bad. Shakur went for the money instead of the legacy and the big fights, and the money is not there anymore. Zuffa, in Fannon’s telling, does not have fifteen million a fight to hand Shakur for fighting whoever he wants.
The warning signs were public. Fannon relays a Bob Arum interview in which Keyshawn Davis also asked Top Rank for his release to chase Zuffa, then found the Zuffa money gone because the Saudi money is walking out the door — the same door Shakur walked through. Now Shakur is leaving Zuffa talking about his own promotional company, and Fannon’s maths on that is cold: without a bank and a very large line of credit to finance fights, a one-man promotional company is a tax arrangement, not a promotion. His understanding is that Shakur has talked to both Top Rank and Matchroom, and neither puts him where he wants to be — Arum is not overpaying anybody, having done that with Terence Crawford for years before stopping, and even Matchroom, Fannon’s most logical landing spot, does not print that kind of money outside the Zuffa pipeline.
Which is where Gervonta Davis walks into the story. When Turki Alalshikh came calling, Tank’s rule, as Fannon recounts it, was simple: pay me in two Ferraris if you want — and give me my money up front. Then he did not sign. He stayed with the PBC, and legal problems aside, Fannon says Tank will be solid the moment he is back in a fight, because his base never moved. David Benavidez ran the same play: took the big Turki card fights, never signed, and still says he is PBC to this day. Fannon doubts Shakur follows them there — the road between his camp and that side of the street has too much history on it — and his predicted landing spot is a private, one-on-one DAZN deal, the kind Teofimo Lopez signed and Devin Haney had.
Our take: Henry Garcia said this week that fighters hurt themselves with their conditions and waste time while fights fall apart — Fannon just showed the invoice. Tank and Benavidez treated the Saudi money as a visit. Shakur treated it as a home, and the home got sold. The fights were always the asset. They still are, whenever he decides to cash them.
Video credit: Fannon International Boxing Channel.
