Shakur Stevenson on WBC stripping: 'I just don't respect it'

Shakur Stevenson says the WBC stripped him of the lightweight title over a sanctioning fee dispute that had nothing to do with the fight they were billing him for.

In a conversation with his mentor Andre Ward, Stevenson said the sanctioning body demanded triple what he paid for his previous fight against Zepeda — for a bout the WBC had no hand in organizing. "After the fight you need to pay [sanctioning fees] so I paid that and then for Teo fight they tried to triple it [but it wasn't a WBC title fight]," Stevenson told Ward, per Bad Left Hook.

Stevenson links WBC move to Crawford dispute

Stevenson said he was already in camp when the WBC began pressing the issue through his team, and he knew the stripping was coming. The fight with Teofimo Lopez was sanctioned by the WBO at a different weight class, which made the WBC's fee demand even harder to swallow. "What am I paying you for?" he said. "This is a WBO sanctioned fight for me and Teo at a different weight class, so why would I pay you any money?"

The former champion believes the real target was Terence Crawford, not him, and that the WBC took out frustrations with Crawford on Stevenson instead. "I feel like their issue is more so with Bud, because this didn't happen and they didn't come to us with this until they started having issues with Bud Crawford," he said. "Why are you taking out your beef you got with Bud, on me? I just don't respect it."

Stevenson remains stripped but has made clear he would rather walk away from a belt than pay fees he considers unjustified.

Reported via:

• Bad Left Hook — ‘I just don’t respect it’: Shakur Stevenson talks about getting stripped by WBC