Shakur Stevenson’s Undeserved Ring Magazine P4P Entry

Ring Magazine has added Shakur Stevenson to the #10 spot on their top 10 pound-for-pound list following his victory over WBC interim lightweight champion William Zepeda last Saturday night.

Moving Shakur (24-0, 11 KOs) onto the P4P list doesn’t sit right with many fans, who are still questioning the nonsensical wide scores that were turned in by the three judges for his fight against Zepeda (33-1, 27 KOs) in Queens, New York. The judges scored the fight as a near shutout win for Stevenson with these weird scores:

– 118-110 = 10-2
– 118-110 = 10-2
– 119-109 = 11-1

Zepeda Win: Tainted P4P Status?

Many fans had the fight as a 6-6 draw, and some even scored it for Zepeda because he had outworked Shakur in every single round in the 12-round fight. I had it for Zepeda 12-0, but factored in the body shots that he was hitting Stevenson with.

If you ignore the Mexican tornado’s powerful punches to the midsection, yeah, I can definitely see Stevenson having won the fight. Even then, it was a razor-close victory. But judges are supposed to count body shots as part of their scoring criteria, and in this case, it’s evident that they didn’t.  As such, Stevenson doesn’t belong on Ring Magazine’s top 10 or even top 20 pound-for-pound list.

Ring Magazine’s Updated 10 P4P list

1. Oleksandr Usyk
2. Naoya Inoue
3. Terence Crawford
4. Dmitry Bivol
5. Artur Beterbiev
6. Junto Nakatani
7. Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez
8. Canelo Alvarez
9. Kenshiro Teraji
10. Shakur Stevenson

Okay, so Shakur should be off the list. That’s for starters. Other subtractions are Kenshiro Teraji, Junto Nakatano, and Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguz. None of them have looked good enough or beaten the kind of competition that makes them worthy of being on the list. Dump them.

P4P Snub: Benavidez Over Shakur

Add David Benavidez because his recent win over David Morrell shows that he’s #1 at 175, and would have been #1 when he was at 168 if Canelo had fought him.

Move Terence Crawford way down toward the bottom due to his inactivity in the last five years. Fighting just once a year isn’t enough. Also, his poor performance against Israil Madrimov in his previous fight exposed him as a hype job.