Dirrell Advises Shakur: Master The Pocket Before Facing Tank

Andre Dirrell says Shakur Stevenson must improve his game and learn to fight in the pocket before facing Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis. Dirrell wants Shakur to take a few fights to evolve, learning how to fight in the pocket before taking on WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Tank Davis (30-0, 28 KOs).

Hearn’s Hasty Plans: A Cash-Out Deal?

Shakur’s new promoter, Eddie Hearn, is rushing him to a fight against Tank after signing the New Jersey native to a two-fight deal with Matchroom.

The Tank fight must be seen as purely a cash-out type deal. Hearn isn’t going to wait three fights for Shakur to learn on the job to iron out the flaws that Dirrell has observed in his game.

Matchroom promoter Hearn wants the Tank fight to happen in mid-2025 because if Shakur waits three more fights, he will likely get beaten by one of the contenders.

In his three fights at 135, Shakur has shown that he doesn’t belong in this weight class because he’s too weak in the power department and can’t stand his ground. It would end badly for Shakur if he attempted to follow Dirrell’s advice to improve his game because he would be vulnerable.

In Shakur’s last fight against the light-punching Artem Harutyunyan, he was getting nailed with shots to the head and body when he stood in the pocket. Although he dodged a lot of the shots, Shakur still gets hit frequently by Harutyunyan, and you can only imagine what the results would be if it were Tank Davis doing the punching.

The retired former IBF interim 168-lb champion Dirrell feels that Tank could walk Shakur down to knock him out quickly due to his lack of power. However, he can scenario where Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) could win if it goes 12 rounds, and he stays on the move the entire fight against Tank.

“Shakur needs to just fix a few things and learn how to fight in the pocket,” said Andre Dirrell on social media, saying that Shakur Stevenson needs more development before facing WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis next year.

“He already showed that he can; he just wasn’t firing off that last fight [against Artem Harutyunyan]. If I were Shakur, I’d test the waters with a few opponents and then jump in there with Tank. He got time for that,” said Dirrell.

Hearn’s Short-term strategy 

The mad hurry that Hearn is in to make the fight between Shakur and Tank makes it seem obvious that he doesn’t see Stevenson as having the talent to stay unbeaten for much longer, even with soft matchmaking.

He almost lost to Edwin De Los Santos. He looked like pure poison getting booed out of his hometown arena for his last fight against Artem Harutyunyan last July at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

If fans have seen Shakur’s fights against the punchers Edwin De Los Santos and Jeremiah Nakathilia, it’s clear that he will be overmatched going against Tank Davis. It’ll be like watching a wolf chasing a rabbit; the outcome would be preordained.

However, Shakur might not get to the Tank Davis fight because the second fight of his two-fight deal with Hearn will be against William Zepeda. That guy has too much offensive firepower for Shakur to handle. Even if Shakur learned how to fight in the pocket like Dirrell wants, he’s not going to last more than three rounds fighting the Mexican slugger Zepeda.

If Shakur loses that fight or turns in another performance like he did against De Los Santos and Nakathilia, there won’t be any interest in a clash with Tank. Even with Hearn’s ability to market non-competitive fights, he would be over his head trying to peddle a clash between Shakur and Tank under those circumstances.

Some believe Hearn’s reasoning for signing Shakur to a short two-fight contract is that he knows he’ll be worthless to him once Tank Davis evaporates him. With a short-term deal, Hearn can avoid the time-consuming and expensive task of rebuilding Shakur’s career after Tank destroys him.

Shakur’s Low Popularity: A Problem for Rebuilding

Depending on how badly Tank beats Shakur, it might be impossible for even a clever promoter like Hearn to bring him back. If Shakur had the popularity of British fighter Anthony Joshua, it would be worth it for Hearn to match him against cream puffs for a couple of years to bring him back from a defeat.

He’s done that quite nicely with Joshua, but that guy has got a huge built-in fan base in the UK, and they’re willing to pay to watch him fight low-level opposition. UK fans still back fighters after they lose and are proven to be shot or never as good as people originally thought, like in the case of AJ.

In the U.S., Hearn can’t do that with Shakur because he’s not popular and will be even less so after Tank Davis gets through with him. Fans won’t stick by Shakur’s side after he loses to Tank because he’s not entertaining to watch, and he has never beaten great opposition to win his three-division world titles.

Stevenson’s Future: Uncertain After Tank

Shakur is this era’s version of Adrien Broner, winning division world titles against marginal opposition. In Broner’s case, he was at least entertaining to watch, and his press conferences were pure 24k gold before he got lazy and tired.

If Hearn tried to do the same re-building with Shakur after Tank Davis mowed him down, fans wouldn’t purchase tickets to watch him fight. Hearn obviously knows what he would be up against trying to restore him to brand new status after a loss to Tank, which is why the short-term deal. If you believe in a fighter, you sign them up for a long-term deal, but not if you have doubts about them.

Putting Shakur’s fights on PPV, like he’s doing with his match against Joe Cordina on October 12th, would be a disaster unless he faced a popular fighter like Devin Haney or Ryan Garcia. Those guys aren’t going to want to help out Shakur after he loses to Tank because there’s no upside because he’s not a PPV attraction.