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Floyd Schofield reacted with amusement when Shakur Stevenson told the media last weekend that he hopes not to back out of their Feb. 22 fight in Riyadh. ‘Kid Austin’ Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs) says Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) is not the type of threat that would make him want to retire.
Schofield says he has “passport” problems, which prevented him from traveling to London to participate in Turki Al-Sheikh’s Ring Award. Otherwise, he would have been there to be seen and give interviews, just like many other wrestlers who received their invitations.
One-handed Shakur?
Challenger Schofield doesn’t see WBC lightweight champion Shakur as a dangerous fighter because he’s not a puncher, and he’s right. Shakur, a native of Newark, New Jersey, is a pure 100% boxer who backs down when pressured and shows no willingness to stay in the pocket if his opponents have power. Stevenson is probably the most timid champion in the sport and shows no will to fight.
In Stevenson’s last fight against Artem Harutyunyanhe stood his ground most of the time because the 34-year-old couldn’t hit. But even in that fight, Shakur was running. That’s why fans began to leave in large numbers, heading towards the exits in the eighth round. This was in Shakur’s hometown of Newark at the Prudential Center.
The glass hand
Shakur’s surgically repaired right hand is the real question mark in this fight because, in a video last week, he still didn’t use it while hitting gloves with one of his trainers. I don’t know Shakur’s chances in this fight if that the glass hand crumbles. Schofield is too strong and throws too many punches for a one-armed Kur to survive.
With only 38 days left until the February 22 card, it’s not a good sign that Stevenson isn’t using that hand yet. A problem is not going to go away in five weeks. If someone has hand surgery, recovery takes much longer than five weeks.
“I thought for what? It does not contribute anything that will make a person withdraw from a fight. But that’s Shakur. He will always have something intelligent to say. Hopefully, it will keep the same energy on February 22, but no one will back down from the fight,” Floyd Schofield told MillCity Boxingreacting to Shakur Stevenson saying he hopes he doesn’t pull out of the fight after not showing up at the Ring Awards in London last Saturday.
“That’s what it’s supposed to say. I feel the same way about him,” Schofield said, in a video interview where Shakur says, ‘Deep down, he (Kid Austin) knows he can’t beat me.’
“He is not a threat to me. I can’t fault him for saying what he’s supposed to say, but I wouldn’t have taken the fight if I didn’t feel that way. He must be self-projecting because I’m here, training and training,” Schofield said of another video of Shakur saying he’s “worried that he (Floyd) won’t show up.”
