Zuffa vs the World: The Shakur Stevenson Split Has Two Sides and Zuffa Finally Gives Its Own

By BoxingInsider Editorial

The world got one back on Monday. Shakur Stevenson, the biggest signing in the short history of Zuffa Boxing, asked for his release and got it without ever fighting under the banner. By Tuesday the reaction had split into two camps, and Zuffa, which does not always answer, quietly answered.

Zuffa did not issue a statement. It did talk to Dan Rafael at Fight Freaks Unite, acknowledging it granted the release and laying out its version. According to Rafael, Stevenson’s contract listed specific opponents with purses attached, some of them welterweights, including Devin Haney, who Zuffa nearly signed around the same time before Haney went directly to DAZN. Zuffa said it wanted to do “super fights” for Stevenson and was willing to let the Haney fight go on DAZN pay-per-view instead of its own partner Paramount+, but the deal died because Stevenson “didn’t really want to go to 147 pounds yet.”

Rafael also reports that Zuffa and TGB Promotions traded offers for a unification with Gary Antuanne Russell but were far apart on money, that a Manny Pacquiao co-feature under Fury vs Joshua went nowhere, and that when Haney fell apart last week Zuffa put a hold on January 23 at Prudential Center in Newark with Jose Valenzuela as the Plan B opponent. Stevenson wanted a bigger name than Valenzuela. Days later he asked out.

A version of the numbers has been circulating on X, credited in part to Sean Zittel, that puts Stevenson’s ask north of $15 million and claims he passed on roughly $7 million for Valenzuela. Zittel has not published a sourced report with those figures and Zuffa gave Rafael no dollar amounts, so BoxingInsider is not treating them as confirmed.

That is the Zuffa side. Eddie Hearn gave the other side to iFL TV on Tuesday morning, and he did not need much prompting.

“Unbelievable. I thought it was a publicity stunt, to be honest with you. Until Shakur’s team called me and messaged me last night, I thought it was just a kind of stunt for an announcement because it was so bad, so embarrassing, so humiliating for Zuffa that I thought it couldn’t be real.”

“How can you sign your most high-profile fighter and then he leaves you without even fighting? I don’t think that, in the history of boxing, that has ever happened.”

Then Hearn turned Dana White’s own line about being judged on Zuffa’s body of work back on him. “One thing that I will give to Zuffa is that they have made history there by actually signing a fighter and never giving him a fight. That is a great body of work there.”

On Stevenson: “Fair play to Shakur Stevenson because he has had the balls to say, ‘Listen, this is not the place for me, these people don’t know what they are doing and I need to get out before my career is ruined.’ He made that move, his team made that move and now he has got to see what is next.”

Hearn is not a neutral party, and the social media reaction was far more divided than his. Longtime matchmaker Rick Glaser took Zuffa’s side without hesitation. “What most need to understand is Zuffa doesn’t need aggravation signings, fight the big fights, stop trying to dictate everything, and you’ll get paid very well,” Glaser posted. “Shakur obviously missed that memo. Boxing has a way of revealing truths.” He followed up Tuesday: “Zuffa made the absolute prudent decision. I wouldn’t have tolerated Shakur as long as they did. They had more patience than I would have had for Shakur. Every new business has growing pains. And Zuffa is no different.”

Bill Haney, whose son was the fight everyone wanted, kept it short: “someone tell shakur to stop dm’ing me unless he fighting my son.” O’Shaquie Foster, who has his own date with Emanuel Navarrete this weekend, told Boxing N BBQ, “I think Shakur is soft, and Zuffa probably thought the same thing.”

Others saw it the other way. Broadcaster Ade Oladipo called it “SO BAD for Zuffa” and said “I think Dana White is realising, this isn’t MMA.” Dan Canobbio of Compubox called it “a great move for him. He was on an island,” and asked the question that matters most: “How did he get out of this deal? What does this mean for Zuffa/Saudi involvement?”

That question sits under all of it. Stevenson signed on July 9 in what White called “a massive signing for Zuffa Boxing,” and Hearn said at the time Zuffa had paid well above market value. Days later White told reporters, “I just paid Shakur Stevenson a (expletive) load of money.” Three months on, a fighter holding a contract with opponents and purses written into it walked away over a weekend with no settlement disclosed, no release fee disclosed and no restrictions disclosed. Zuffa says it offered super fights. Stevenson says he sat in camp for eight weeks waiting on fights he was told were coming. Both of those things can be true, and in this sport they usually are.

Stevenson says he is starting his own promotional company and is open to working with any promoter or network. “I want the biggest and best fights available at 135 pounds or 140 pounds, where I hold my title,” he said. “Give me maybe a year or two, we’ll get to 147, where everyone is just pressing me to be a 147-pounder. I will get there, but on my terms and not on anyone else’s.”

The world got one back this week. Whether it was Zuffa that failed to make a fight or Stevenson who priced himself out of one depends on who you ask, and this time, for once, Zuffa answered.