After some strong rumors that had recent promotional free agent Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta Davis close to making a deal for a big-ticket lightweight title bout, Stevenson has now been re-attached to rumors of a bout with William Zepeda. As a matter of fact, Lance Pugmire of Boxingscene.com is reporting that there’s already a verbal agreement in place.
Citing the word of an unnamed “boxing official connected to the deal,” Pugmire reports that the bout even has a tentative October 12 date. According to Pugmire’s source, the bout would land on the undercard of the light heavyweight unification clash between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
That’s a huge turnaround from where this possible fight seemed to be headed in recent weeks.
Two weeks ago, Zepeda’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya had seemingly nixed the fight between his guy and WBC champ Stevenson, publicly balking at the WBC’s attempt to force the bout by making Zepeda the organization’s mandatory challenger.
check this out @williamzepeda2 is so bad ass he has four sanctioning bodies to choose from. Nobody will tell him who he must fight next.
— Oscar De La Hoya (@OscarDeLaHoya) July 15, 2024
A few days after that, De La Hoya buried the fight even further by publicly distancing himself from Stevenson and insisting he wouldn’t work with him.
“Shakur Stevenson, you’re a free agent, you’re a great fighter, a great talent, but not for me,” De La Hoya said. “I believe that when somebody says you’re not fighting for the public, I cannot promote.”
That’s when Stevenson pivoted towards a Tank Davis fight.
Mexico’s Zepeda, who is the no. 1 lightweight contender for all four of boxing’s sanctioning bodies, subsequently faded back into the background, presumably with a different career course in mind.
According to the report from Pugmire, Stevenson’s people have now moved on from Davis after initially being approached by Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) to gauge the fighter’s interest in the fight. According to Pugmire’s source, representatives from PBC have failed to follow up on the promise of talks.
And that is where, presumably, this return to Zepeda took hold.
If the reports are accurate, it’s clear that Stevenson-Zepeda is back in play due to Saudi involvement. With De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions having recently announced a partnership with Saudi Arabia and their Riyadh Season commercialization, the purse may have been sweetened enough to nudge De La Hoya into having his fighter take on the rough stylistic challenge of the quick, skilled Stevenson. The placement on the Beterbiev-Bivol undercard would be a dead giveaway.
Or not.
Following the report from Pugmire, De La Hoya would hop on Twitter/X with a denial of sorts.
“Stop with the fake news,” the promoter wrote, after linking to the Boxingscene article.
https://t.co/uPwqTeMgFL stop with the fake news!
— Oscar De La Hoya (@OscarDeLaHoya) July 31, 2024
Paul Magno has over forty years of experience in and around the sport of boxing and has had his hand in everything from officiating to training. As a writer, his work has appeared on Yahoo Sports, Fox Sports, Fight Hype, Max Boxing, Boxing.com, Inside Fights, The Queensberry Rules, Overtime Heroics, Bleacher Report, and Premier Boxing Champions. He is currently the owner and managing editor or The Boxing Tribune. You can follow his Twitter/X account, @boxing_tribune, for breaking boxing news, analysis, and sometimes NSFW commentary. For Advertising, Inquiries, etc., send him an email here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com