A number of fights were ordered by the WBC during their annual convention this past week, including one lightweight title eliminator between Shakur Stevenon and Isaac Cruz. Both Stevenson and Cruz are under different promotional umbrellas, which we would hope doesn’t stand in the way of marquee fights, but this is boxing and we know the realities of the situation.
So in this conversation with Fight Hype, Bob Arum talks about why he doesn’t expect a Stevenson vs Cruz bout to actually come to fruition in spite of the WBC’s order.
“I don’t think (that fight happens),” Arum said. “I don’t think Cruz is really anxious to fight him because I don’t think anybody is really anxious to fight Shakur, so I don’t think that fight will happen. I think we’ll probably go in a different direction for Shakur.
“There are four sanctioning bodies. So Cruz will probably look to fight somebody else for another sanctioning body’s mandatory, and we’ll do the same for Shakur. And if I’m wrong, we’ve reached out to Sean Gibbons. Shakur will obviously fight anybody at 135 because he’s a fantastic fighter. And I don’t blame Cruz for not wanting to fight him.
“I can’t really see anybody other than maybe the top, top guys like Haney or Lomachenko being anything other than easy fight for Shakur, he’s that good.”