James Toney is not buying Shakur Stevenson as a technician.
Stevenson became a four-division world champion in January with a wide decision over Teofimo Lopez, taking the WBO and Ring junior welterweight titles on all three cards. He has not fought since. Toney gave his assessment to Fight Hub TV.
I like Shakur, but he’s boring. He has good boxing skills, but I don’t know if he can apply the shoulder roll the way James Toney and other old-school fighters did.
His standard is Sugar Ray Robinson.
Sugar Robinson was a technician, he boxed and stopped people. That’s how you become a technician. You don’t become a technician by running around the ring and all that. But, as I said, he’s a good fighter but he’s got to prove himself, stop running your mouth and fight the real fights.
Toney has some standing on the shoulder roll. He won titles in three divisions, beat Michael Nunn and Mike McCallum at middleweight and held the IBF super middleweight belt until Roy Jones Jr outpointed him in November 1994.
Stevenson has never come close to losing as a professional and sits comfortably inside most pound-for-pound top fives, with wins over William Zepeda and Oscar Valdez alongside the Lopez result.
The complaint about who he fights is not Toney’s alone. O’Shaquie Foster said this week that Stevenson went quiet after promising him a fight if he got past Raymond Ford, and that he believes Stevenson avoids him because he never got a read on him in sparring. Stevenson has no date for his Zuffa Boxing debut.
