Shakur Stevenson Teases Cordina Fight By Telling Fans “F**k Y’all”

According to reports (that may likely be confirmed by the time you read this), WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) will be facing Joe Cordina (17-1, 9 KOs) October 12 on the Dmitry Bivol-Artur Beterbiev undercard in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Stevenson will be fighting under a one-fight agreement with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing.

Stevenson tipped his hand Tuesday morning on Twitter/X with some defensive tweets, making preemptive excuses for facing weak opposition in his first bout as a promotional free agent and explaining that he’s now “International Kur…Chasing the BAG.”

Oh yeah, he also told the fans to go f**k themselves

lol I’m not fighting for yall no more Fuck yall 😂 International Kur active now. #ChasingGreatness

— Shakur Stevenson (@ShakurStevenson) August 20, 2024

Unappreciative ass niggas think they matter nah not to me Smd cry me a river 😭😭 https://t.co/cdskusndKy

— Shakur Stevenson (@ShakurStevenson) August 20, 2024

And for the fans who fw me I care bout yall for sure but understand this, This is a business and it’s make as much money as u can in this business.. People want me to sit and wait around for Literally every other fighter to make they decision wether they want to fight me now or…

— Shakur Stevenson (@ShakurStevenson) August 20, 2024

By facing Cordina, the 27-year-old Stevenson will be facing his second straight opponent coming off a loss. In July– the last bout in his Top Rank contract– he decisioned Artem Harutyunyan, who had been defeated via unanimous decision one year earlier by Frank Martin.

In Cordina’s last bout, back in May, he was knocked out in eight rounds by underdog Anthony Cacace. The loss capped off an uninspiring IBF super featherweight title reign that began with a shock KO of Japan’s Kenichi Ogawa in 2022.

Coming off an ugly loss and moving up in weight, Cordina’s only apparent qualification for this prominent undercard spot against Stevenson is that he’s a Matchroom fighter, there to be sacrificed by Hearn, and that he has a somewhat recognizable name.

Out the window with this Stevenson-Cordina pairing, apparently, is the “we only want the big fights” mantra of Saudi sportwashing figurehead Turki Alalshikh. This one is, most definitely, not a “big” one.

Even excluding the Top 3 fights for Stevenson– versus Tank Davis, Vasiliy Lomachenko, and William Zepeda– a Cordina matchup would not be on anyone’s wish list for the skilled stylist.

Clearly, this is a big money gimme for a fighter Alalshikh would like to do bigger business with later. More importantly, he’s an AMERICAN fighter Alalshikh would like to have in his stable as only the second prominent American name, after Stevenson’s good friend and mentor Terence Crawford, to become a Saudi boxing “property.”

On name value, alone, adding Stevenson would be a substantial coup for Alalshikh, even if the addition would turn out to be yet another in-the-red boxing move for a Saudi endeavor that is willing to operate at a loss for their ultimate purposes.

For Stevenson, the Cordina fight is an easy and likely substantial payout, the kind that, to be fair, would be hard for any fighter to turn down.

His great big “F**k You” to the fans, however, is uniquely Shakur. It’s in keeping with the character profile of a fighter who will cruise to a safety-first decision against opposition he could easily wreck because the bottom line is not putting on a show or building fan appeal, but getting the “W.” It’s also in keeping with a character profile that will subsequently whine about how fans don’t support him after he goes out, performance after performance, showing how he doesn’t care about what they want.

In teaming with the Saudis, Stevenson appears to be solving his biggest career problem– making money without having to actually sell himself to fans to do it.