Can Shakur’s hands hold Schofield?

WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson is training for his title defense against the unheralded Floyd Schofield on February 22 in Riyadh. Fans are curious to see if the 27-year-old Shakur can make it through training camp without a relapse in his injured right hand.

Cured by hand?

Shakur injured his right hand in training for his title defense against Joe Cordina on the October 12 card. The fight was canceled and this will be Shakur’s first time back since surgery.

If Stevenson’s surgically repaired right hand breaks during the Schofield fight, he will be forced to move around the ring as he did against Edwin De Los Santos in their November 16, 2023 fight.

Assuming Stevenson makes it through training camp without his hands falling off, he has a tough fight against the 22-year-old Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs). This guy can hit, he’s aggressive, and he sees this fight as a way to put himself in position to fight Gervonta Davis.

Shakur needs to look good in this fight because he’s performing on Turki Al-Shiekh’s loaded Riyadh card. His fight with Schofield is buried under four other fights on the card, indicating that he has lost status after two lackluster performances against Artem Harutyunyan and Edwin De Los Santos.

Schofield has no experience against world-class opposition in his short career, and some fans believe the only reason he is winning the title against Shakur is because his father entered the match on social media.

The World Boxing Association awarded Schofield a high ranking for beating fluff opposition, but does not rate a top 15 ranking in real terms. Floyd fought to beat official Rene Tellez Giron on November 2nd in his last fight.

Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) needs to impress against Floyd Jr., who is 22, to win back the fans he lost after his last two fights against De Los Santos and Harutyunyan. Many people have given up on Shakur, seeing him as a typical runner after these two fights.

Stevenson had been fighting like this since turning pro after being defeated by Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez in the Olympic finals in 2016. Some naive boxing fans had expected Shakur to evolve. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened. The saying goes, “A tiger cannot change its stripes.”

Shakur, a native of Newark, does not fit into this modern era of boxing. It belongs to the Mayweather era in the 1990s before the internet age. Fans these days have little patience for boring wrestlers running around. You have to entertain.

Schofield isn’t as big a puncher as De Los Santos, but he’s still dangerous and young. He will go all out, looking to knock out Stevenson to position himself for a fight against Gervonta Davis.

8 weeks out 📸 @ShakurStevenson pic.twitter.com/kVFaJGMV9J

— Shot By Zax📸 (@ShotByZax) January 2, 2025