why Shakur Stevenson left Zuffa revealed

Chris Mannix explains how rival promoters blocked potential fights

As is well known, four-time world champion and undisputed pound-for-pound star Shakur Stevenson had to leave Zuffa Boxing without ever fighting a single bout. At first, there was hardly any information about why he took this step, but reporter Chris Mannix has since provided more insight into the situation. According to him, the relationship between him and Zuffa began to crumble after he decided on his preferred opponent, Devin Haney, and wanted to sign an exclusive contract with DAZN instead of fighting the bout with Zuffa. The additional problem, however, is that many promoters simply don’t want to strike a deal with Zuffa.

“They found themselves in a position where there are fights that Zuffa, I think, would’ve been willing to pay for, but other promoters were not willing to play ball. So you’ve got all these other promoters out there who have really good fighters who had no interest in doing deals with Zuffa that would sacrifice one of their top talents to face Shakur Stevenson"

he said.

And that left Shakur Stevenson facing a complicated choice of opponent, since he really only had options to fight within the promotion. Jose Valenzuela would actually have been the only option worth considering here, but Shakur Stevenson said immediately after signing with Zuffa that he wouldn’t take that fight because Jose Valenzuela was too unknown. That left him with a difficult choice, and he decided to leave the promotion. What do you think about that?