Shakur Stevenson v Floyd Schofield is Off

Aside from Bivol being one of the most humble, respectful, and likeable fighters in the entire sport and him never talking **** about anyone, let alone one of my favourite fighters

He's a small LHW fighting bigger or much bigger men almost exclusively and a lot of his title defences have come against extremely durable fighters who have either never been stopped or very rarely have and generally when they have been it's by savage punchers like Kovalev and Beterbiev

Beterbiev - obviously never been stopped

Clenelo - never been dropped, let alone stopped

Zurdo - ditto

Pascal - the best chin at LHW of his generation IMO and has only been stopped twice and that was by prime Kovalev who was punching holes in castle walls back then. And even then he finished on his feet both times after eating a sickeningly heavy blows which would've put most mortal men to sleep

Salamov never been dropped or stopped

Richards never been dropped or stopped

Joe Smith - has only been stopped legitimately by Beterbiev

Chilemba - has been stopped twice, once on an arm injury vs Gvozdyk, the other time in his last fight which was last year and that was up at CW vs a big puncher with a KO 94% who weighed at least 15lbs more than him if not 20 or more and Chilemba is old and past his prime now and not a CW. Hence why he weighed in 15lbs below the CW limit for that fight

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And all these guys were bigger or much bigger than Bivol sans Clenelo

So whilst he's not a big puncher per say he can punch and his low KO% in title fights is deceptive

Bivol is not boring he's aggressive, throws a lot of shots, isn't a runner, and he doesn't hold like an octopus like some of these other slick or safety-first boxers some claim he fights like. Both he and Shakur have elite skills and defence

Watch. Vs much or way bigger men, actually former and future world champions in Zurdo's case, and big punchers at that

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Shakur has stunk the joint out numerous times being super risk averse, even against fighters with average power at best, so much so his own home fans have booed him and walked out early from his fights in his own hometown.

To be fair, he has fought more aggressively in a lot of his fights but Bivol didn't even stink out the joint against the murderous punching Beterbiev for goodness sake

Sure he might have boxed and moved but WTF do you expect him to do against arguably the hardest puncher in the game who will systematically brutally beat the soul out of your body if you're dumb enough to stand in front of him? If ever there was a fighter to stink out the joint and be super risk averse against it's Beterbiev but Bivol still didn't do that. His fight against Beterbiev was a good fight not a stinker.

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Yet I also predicted, before they beat anyone of real note and were relatively untested, that...

Madrimov would be the toughest fight of Crawford's career.
De Los Santos would be Shakur's toughest test.
Joe Smith Jr. would brutally KO Fonfara.
Kabayel would beat Chisora, Makhmudov and Sanchez.
Espinoza would derail Robeisy Ramirez.
Murtazaliev would KO Tszyu.
Fernando Martinez would dominate Ancajas and later Ioka.
Angelo Leo would KO Venado Lopez.
Barboza would beat both Ramirez and Catterall.
Berinchyk would beat Navarette.
Cacace would knock out Cordina.
Nishida would beat Emmanuel Rodriguez.
Takei would beat Moloney.
Mendoza would KO Fundora.
Fundora would beat Tszyu.
Trout would school Cotto.
Herrera would beat Danny Garcia, of course he was robbed.
Sor Rungvisai would beat Chocolatito, the first and second time.
That Usyk would unify CW and HW and become best P4P fighter in the world, a decade out.

...and there's hundreds more where they came from.

See... because I know my ****, and know talent when I see it. Simply put, I'm smarter than you.

 

Pimp C, you're a fairly smart guy. Would you agree with me when I say, Floyd Schofield, even though he's thoroughly unproven at the top level, has far more raw talent than Valdez, Conceicao and De Los Santos, and would've given Shakur fits?

 

Do a deep dive on the kid, he's a prodigy. You'll love him. I see a little of GGG, Pacquiao, Porter and Hagler in him. I wish more American fighters fought like him.

 

Big Frank. OG Frank. Not a business associate of mine but we have moved in similar circles

 

I'd heard his name over the years but I'd never actually seen him fight before. However, seeing as he's or rather was fighting on this card on Saturday night I decided to check out a bit of footage of him a couple of days ago and watch a couple of his interviews. I only watched a few minutes of him in action but I was impressed by what I saw. He looks a talent and has heavy hands and he came across well in the interviews too and mature for his age.

 

Someone else who knows their ****, knows talent when he sees it. Who's smarter than most of you.

 

Thanks. Yeah, thing is the fight I watched a bit of footage of isn't from what I gather one of his best performances but he still impressed me in it. I think the guy he fought in that one was a Mexican and he was very tough and could crack too

 

Yeah, it went the distance, I think with Mercado. But still looked pretty dazzling in it. His win over Giron is super underrated, and that's going to become very apparent when Giron KO's Rocky Hernandez next week.