Loma Shakes Up Shakur During Altercation – ‘Outside, Let’s Fight Right Now’
Shakur Stevenson and Vasiliy Lomachenko traded verbal shots at the Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov fight.
Both boxers were present as Crawford beat Madrimov via a unanimous decision to win the WBA Junior Middleweight Title. The win made Crawford a four-division champion as Shakur and Loma watched ringside. Shakur has been linked with a fight with Loma for some time. The pair were both under Top Rank, but Shakur is now a free agent after the expiry of his contract. During their time with the same promoter, a fight was discussed.
Loma Vs. Shakur
Loma could have boxed Shakur for the then-vacant WBC belt since he was the highest-ranked candidate to face Shakur. But the Ukrainian chose to take time off, meaning the fight never happened. That has fuelled speculation that Loma does not want the fight. The three-weight world champion is at the latter end of his year, meaning he is more selective over which fights he takes. Now, they came to verbal blows. The following footage shows them being separated by security. The duo could be heard saying the following.
Shakur Stevenson: “Me and you, let’s fight. Why don’t you want to fight me?”
Vasily Lomachenko: “We can go right now. Let’s do it outside. Let’s go right now.”
There is a narrative in place to make that fight happen. Loma was linked with a bout against Gervonta Davis. Reports indicated that a fight could happen in November. It would have been a unification fight, allowing Davis to put his WBA title on the line against Loma’s IBF lightweight belt. However, Lomachenko’s manager, Egis Klimas, confirmed that his fighter was not motivated to take that fight now.
“Loma is not in the mood right now. He doesn’t have the motivation at the moment. He’s taking time off, he wants to spend more time with the family. He doesn’t want to do anything until the end of the year. So he’s definitely not coming to the ring until the end of the year,” Egis said
Arum Reacts
That leaves Shakur as the leading candidate to face Tank. If the fight gets made and Shakur comes through with a win, it sets up a unification with Loma, allowing them to fight for three belts. Since Shakur and Loma would want to take up any chances of being undisputed, that fight makes more sense once there are more belts on the line. Bob Arum recently confirmed that a Tank Davis is preferable to Loma.
“What Shakur, God love him, forgets, while he is independent, and makes decisions that benefit him, he assumes that all other fighters are puppets. And therefore the promoter makes them do what the promoter wants, which is not the case, obviously. Because Loma is as independent, if not more so than Shakur.
“Tank Davis is independent as far as who he wants to fight. Shakur’s universe is that he’s independent as far to determine who he wants to fight and everybody else is a puppet and the promoters are the puppeteers. And that’s just not true. That’s just not realistic, but you can’t get it through Shakur’s head.
“Because Lomachenko has something to say about it. Again, that’s the mentality where Top Rank and myself are the puppet masters and we can move these fighters around like puppets. No, the fighters wanna do what’s best for themselves, and that’s how it’s always been,” Arum said
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