Shakur Stevenson vs. Joe Cordina is now off for October 12th due to the WBC lightweight champion Shakur suffering a hand injury during training that required immediate surgery.
(Photo credit: Julie Goldsticker)
There’s no word yet whether the co-feature for the undercard PPV fight between Chris Eubank Jr. and Kamil Szeremeta will be moved to the headliner for the $14.99 portion of the card. If that’s the headline for U.S. fans to purchase on DAZN PPV, it could be a disaster. That’s not a good enough fight to be old on pay-per-view to Americans.
According to Matchroom Boxing, Shakur (22-0, 10 KO) will “return to the ring in 2025.” They said nothing about rescheduling with the former IBF super featherweight champion Cordina (17-1, 9 KOs). That might be a good thing.
Conspiracy theorists on social media will see the injury reports as a sign that Matchroom changed their minds about making the Shakur vs. Cordina, given the negative reaction from fans about this fight. Hearn recently signed Shakur to a two-fight deal, and he’d been talking about turning him into a “global superstar.
“I am definitely disappointed that I won’t be able to fight on October 12. I have been super sharp and feeling great in camp and was planning to put on a show next month against Joe Cordina,” said Shakur. “But I have to listen to the doctor and have these injuries fixed immediately so that I can come back stronger than ever at the start of 2025.”
With that kind of talk, fans were surprised when the Stevenson vs. Joe Cordina fight was announced because they’d expected better. At the very least, a rematch with Edwin De Los Santos, who Shakur beat by a controversial 12-round decision last November to capture the WBC lightweight title.
Given the negative feedback from fans on the Shakur-Cordina fight, it would be a good idea to go in a different direction for Shakur’s next fight. Promoter Eddie Hearn mentioned yesterday that Stevenson’s plans are to face William Zepeda in February. However, that was before the news of Shakur’s hand injury today.
Zepeda would be a dangerous opponent for Stevenson to fight coming off surgery for a hand injury.
Unless Hearn is in an absolute hurry to make the fight with Zepeda happen, he needs to give Stevenson a warm up against a contender that U.S fans are familiar with.
Casual boxing fans had never heard of Cordina, 32, and the hardcore fans weren’t impressed with him. They’d seen Cordina get knocked out in his previous fight by Anthony Cacace on May 18th and felt he was a bad choice for Shakur to fight on PPV on October 12th at any price, even for free.
The main event fight between light heavyweight champions Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol will be on ESPN+.
