Tim Bradley says Shakur Stevenson will be just fine fighting in the small 18-foot ring for his fight against William Zepeda on Saturday night, July 12th, at the Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York. Bradley states that Shakur (23-0, 11 KOs) will “pepper” Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs) with shots all night

Shakur’s Brittle Hands Challenge Zepeda

Tim thinks Shakur will be okay as long as his brittle hands hold up. If they don’t, he’s going to have a problem against Zepeda because he’s going to do some peppering of his own. It’s still going to be easily the hardest fight Shakur has had since he turned pro.

“Turki Alalshikh is talking about shrinking the ring. I got a lot of feelings about that on both sides,” said Tim Bradley on his YouTube channel about Saturday’s fight between Shakur Stevenson and William Zepeda. “Shakur is about to pepper this boy up. He’s going to put the hot sauce on Zepeda’s behind.”

If Bradley means that Shakur is going to hit and run, he’s right. That’s the only way Stevenson can fight someone like Zepeda because he lacks the punch output, power, and hand speed to dominate in a brawl. He’s going to have to hit and run.

Turki Alalshikh is going to be furious because he said he doesn’t want any Tom and Jerry-type fights on any of his Riyadh Season events. Shakur can’t change the way he fights because he’s been using that style since he was an amateur.

“Shakur is going to put it on him as long as his hands hold up. Man, Shakur has got some of the most brittle hands I’ve ever witnessed. He has hands like a three-year-old daughter,” said Bradley.

Shakur’s hands broke down in his fight against Josh Padley last February, but he was able to get through the fight by focusing on throwing body shots. Padley had no power to make Shakur pay the way the top-tier lightweights would. So, he was able to get away with standing in close and nailing Padley wth body shots. He can’t do that against Zepeda because he throws too many punches and hits too hard.

Zepeda vs. Stevenson: Ring Size Factor

“It’s going to be a smaller ring. You’ve got a pressure fighter against a boxer that likes space. It’s going to take a little bit of his [Stevenson’s] space away, but it doesn’t mean that Zepeda is going to know how to cut the ring,” said Bradley. “It’s a little less space to move. However, Shakur should be able to figure it out with his boxing skills.”

It sounds like Bradley has never bothered to watch Zepeda fight before. If he’d seen him fight, he’d know that Zepeda is excellent at cutting off the ring on his opponents. Even against runners, he’s shown to be quite good at trapping them. However, if Shakur doesn’t want to fight, he’ll find a way to avoid contact by moving and holding.

If he does that, he’s going to be booed out of the Louis Armstrong Stadium on Saturday because this is New York. The fight isn’t being held in Riyadh or his hometown of Newark, where fans will tolerate his non-engaging style.

New York Demands Fight Action

New Yorkers will want value for their money. With Shakur’s fight against Zepeda being the co-feature bout on the card, it’s even more important that he doesn’t transform the contest into a Tom and Jerry type of contest. It’s questionable whether Turki Alalshikh will ever use Stevenson again for one of his events if runs around the ring like he did against Edwin De Los Santos.

That was the last good opponent that Shakur has fought, and that was two years ago in 2023. He’s fought twice since, beating the part-time boxer, Josh Padley, and the inactive Artem Harutyunyan, who was coming off a year layoff and a defeat to Frank Martin. Both were weak punchers.

The reason Shakur hasn’t faced good opposition since the De Los Santos fight is that he’s being maneuvered into a mega-fight against Gervonta Davis. They don’t want Shakur to get beaten before then. So, he’s been matched against Padley, Harutyunyan, and now Zepeda. There are far better fighters than Zepeda at 135, like Andy Cruz, but his management doesn’t want to mess up the Tank fight.

Turki Demands Fight Engagement

“I’m looking for more engagement. This could push Shakur over the top in a great way because he’s going to have to stand and fight a little bit more. He’s going to have to. He’s going to tie up a little bit more. He’s going to have to stand and fight a little bit more. That’s okay,” said Bradley.

With the millions that Turki Alalshikh is paying Shakur for this fight, he should fight more and not steal the money by using his amateur style to run around the ring. In Stevenson’s last fight against his replacement opponent, ‘Josh Padley, he did a lot of holding and stepping back to neutralize his opponent’s offense.

There were boos from the fans at ringside, who expected more from Shakur, given that he was facing a low-level opponent that wasn’t world-class.