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Bob Arum does not think it will be a Herculean task to get perhaps the most talented fighter in his promotional stable to take on a rival company’s star draw.
Arum, the head of Top Rank Inc., was asked for his thoughts on whether or not there is a favorable chance to see a match-up between his charge, unified 130-pound titlist Shakur Stevenson, and Gervonta Davis materialize in the future.
Davis is backed by Al Haymon of Premier Boxing Champions and Floyd Mayweather Jr. of Mayweather Promotions, which generally does not do business with Top Rank, although there have been notable exceptions.
“I don’t see a reason why not,” Arum told FightHubTV. “Shakur is obviously an elite talent and is competitive against any of these guys. He’s a very tough guy to beat, Shakur, as he’s demonstrated.
“In the months, years ahead we’re going to put Shakur in with these types of fighters. Nobody wants to see Shakur fight walkovers. They want to see him tested and Shakur, to his credit, wants to be tested.”
Stevenson (18-0, 9 KOs) saw his stock rise with his most recent ring outing in April in which he handily defeated champion Oscar Valdez in a 130-pound unification bout at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The skilled southpaw from Newark, New Jersey, currently owns the WBC and WBO super featherweight titles.
Arum brushed off concerns that political divisions will prevent Stevenson from fighting Davis. Arum pointed to certain fights he has made with other promoters as evidence that Stevenson-Davis would not be out of the realm of possibility. Arum co-promoted two heavily-publicized heavyweight title bouts featuring Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder with Haymon’s PBC.
“He’s an elite fighter,” Arum said of Davis. “There will certainly be an opportunity down the road to match him with one of our fighters. That’s whether he’s still under contract to Floyd or he’s not.
“This nonsense about not fighting fighters that are under contracts to other [promoters], I don’t believe in that. I think that we demonstrated that. We’ve had a lot of matchups with our fighters fighting against PBC fighters or against Golden Boy fighters.”
Davis (27-0, 25 KOs) is coming off a sixth-round stoppage of overmatched Rolando Romero in a WBA “World” lightweight title bout at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Davis’ name attracted a record crowd (more than 18,000) for a boxing event at the venue. Stevenson was ringside for the fight.