{"id":2741,"date":"2026-08-17T03:35:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T03:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=2741"},"modified":"2026-08-17T03:35:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T03:35:02","slug":"shakur-stevenson-accused-of-potentially-ducking-unbeaten-champion-what-other-fight-is-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=2741","title":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson accused of potentially ‘ducking’ unbeaten champion: “What other fight is there?”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shakur Stevenson has been urged to face a \u201cbigger and stronger\u201d version of William Zepeda, who arguably gave the slick southpaw his toughest fight in July 2025.<\/p>\n

Still, Stevenson emerged with a unanimous decision victory but, sure enough, was made to work tremendously hard in each of their 12 rounds.<\/p>\n

This year, the unbeaten American moved up to 140lbs and became a four-division world champion, dethroning Teofimo Lopez<\/a> with a near whitewash in January.<\/p>\n

But despite holding the WBO super-lightweight title, Stevenson has expressed an openness to face opponents in either his current division or back down at 135lbs.<\/p>\n

Either way, the 29-year-old is expected to make his Zuffa Boxing debut before long, having signed a multi-fight deal with Dana White\u2019s promotional outfit.<\/p>\n

In terms of potential opponents, top trainer Robert Garcia has suggested Raymond Muratalla, who defended his IBF lightweight title with a unanimous decision victory over Robson Conceicao<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

With the 29-year-old now looking to campaign at 140lbs, though, Garcia has told FightHype<\/a> that, besides Devin Haney, he believes his unbeaten charge represents the most obvious option for Stevenson.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf [the Haney fight] doesn\u2019t happen, what other fight is there [for Stevenson]? I think Raymond is the perfect [opponent] \u2013 great [clash of] styles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Raymond is much bigger and much stronger than Zepeda. If Shakur gets the Haney fight, we can\u2019t argue. We can\u2019t say he\u2019s ducking [Muratalla].<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if he\u2019s saying [the Muratalla fight] has to be at 135[lbs], then he\u2019s ducking a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While there has been loose talk of a clash between Stevenson and Haney, it would seem that the WBO welterweight champion is currently targeting a unification match with Liam Paro.<\/p>\n

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Shakur Stevenson has been urged to face a \u201cbigger and stronger\u201d version of William Zepeda, who arguably gave the slick southpaw his toughest fight in July 2025. Still, Stevenson emerged with a unanimous decision victory but, sure enough, was made to work tremendously hard in each of their 12 rounds. This year, the unbeaten American…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[3698,916,4437,1606,4436,2208,2209,2354],"class_list":["post-2741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-accused","tag-champion","tag-ducking","tag-fight","tag-potentially","tag-shakur","tag-stevenson","tag-unbeaten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}