Consistency is easy when a fighter like Shakur is feasting on tailor-made opponents. I won\u2019t go into the long list of fighters Stevenson has faced during his career. But what I will say is that he has not run the same gauntlet that Teofimo has.<\/p>\n
Teofimo has had the hard road as a pro, a real trooper. If you had 10 more like him in a platoon, you\u2019d have an elite team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen these kids start making a load of money and getting a lot of fame, it\u2019s not easy to deal with. Fighters should look at Shakur. He\u2019s always in camp. He\u2019s never out of shape. You\u2019ll never see him out drunk. You\u2019ll never see him out doing stupid things. Money is secondary. Legacy is principle,\u201d said Hearn.<\/p>\n
Fighters can live it up outside the ring and still find success. Where it goes off the rails is when they put on a lot of weight, drink too much, and stay inactive for long stretches.<\/p>\n
What Hearn isn\u2019t saying is that once some fighters get a taste of money, they focus on looking for similar well-paying fights. That\u2019s all their careers have become. They morph into prize fighters, and they\u2019re often not facing the best.<\/p>\n
One can argue that\u2019s what Shakur has become. He got a taste of the gold riches against William Zepeda with a reported $5 million payday, and now he\u2019s abandoned the WBC lightweight division and gone up to 140 to face Teofimo Lopez.<\/p>\n
This is about money. In his last seven fights, Teo has looked like the shell of the fighter who beat Lomachenko in 2020.<\/p>\n
![\"YouTube](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765858753_970_hqdefault.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Ken Woods has been a senior writer at Boxing News 24 since 2013, covering the sport from every angle. With years of ringside reporting, he delivers fight news, results, and analysis that cut through the noise. Ken\u2019s work consistently spotlights champions, contenders, and rising prospects, giving fans a sharp, knowledgeable view of the global boxing scene. His reporting blends on-the-ground event coverage with clear technical insight, making him one of the most reliable voices in modern boxing media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What Hearn doesn\u2019t understand is that Shakur\u2019s career would likely look very similar, with ups and downs, if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-318400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}