00:00Welcome to The Zone. I'm Barack the Boxing Bully.
00:03Ring Magazine is putting on an incredible event.
00:05July 12th, the Peter's gonna remember my name.
00:06Here in New York.
00:09And I have one of the headlines.
00:11Shakur Stevenson!
00:15Shakur Stevenson first becoming a superstar.
00:20What's up, champ?
00:21What's good, my guy?
00:21You good?
00:22Yeah, I'm straight.
00:23So, you was in New York, Times Square.
00:25Yeah.
00:26Amazing event on paper.
00:28Some people complained about it.
00:29I thought it was still crazy because it was in Times Square.
00:33How did you feel about being there?
00:34Honestly, it was cool.
00:35It was cool to watch them sit there and fight.
00:38The entire event was cool.
00:41Only thing, like I said before, was that I don't think that Ryan Garcia got a chance to show himself for real.
00:47I don't think he was well prepared for the fight.
00:49So, it was basically more his fault than what Roley offered, you think?
00:53Yeah, I think it was more bad Ryan Garcia rather than good Roley.
00:56I think Roley did good with just leaving his hand up.
01:00But truthfully, I don't think he got the best version of Ryan Garcia.
01:04Ryan Garcia ain't getting trained for that fight, I don't think.
01:06I don't feel like.
01:07You were sitting next to Mike Tyson.
01:09Did he have any words of encouragement or anything for you?
01:11Yeah, actually, I was talking to Mike all night.
01:14I honestly was asking him a lot of questions.
01:16I don't want to spill my questions out to him, to y'all.
01:19But I was asking a lot of questions and taking my notes.
01:23Can you name one good thing he said, though?
01:25I can't tell you the gems he was saying.
01:27It was more so like my questions was about boxing and the things that he was doing and preparing himself for fights.
01:35So, like I said, I ain't giving out no secrets.
01:38I want to talk about Edgar Belenka.
01:41Yeah.
01:41Like, obviously, this was a friend of yours, but he got upset when you was on The Breakfast Club saying you shouldn't be on the call.
01:49Like, you the star on that.
01:50How do you feel about the things he said about you?
01:53Honestly, I got to be real with you.
01:56I kind of caused that.
01:58And I know, like, I ain't scared to go to war with nobody.
02:01So, let me make sure.
02:02A parent.
02:03It's a parent of it.
02:04I don't care who it is.
02:05I'll go to war with whoever.
02:06But I am a man and I got to be accountable for the things that I say and do wrong.
02:10And I feel like in that situation, I went out there and I said something where it's like I wasn't thinking of him.
02:18And I should have been thinking about him because that's my brother at the end of the day.
02:20So, yeah, I ain't going to get too much into detail.
02:24No, no, no.
02:24I respect that.
02:25That's my guy, bro.
02:25I get it.
02:26I get it.
02:27So, obviously, you want to squash that and y'all could be on the same card.
02:31We squash.
02:32And it's okay.
02:32We squash already.
02:33We already talked about it.
02:34Everything good.
02:35So, you've been joking around.
02:36Obviously, it's a joke.
02:37You're saying you're scared of Williams and Pater.
02:39You even said it on X.
02:40Yeah, I'm very fearful, man.
02:42Yeah.
02:42I'm so scared.
02:43What does he do good in your eyes?
02:46I know you study the sport.
02:48I mean, you know, here's the thing, right?
02:50When you got a fighter that mastered their own style, they're always the most dangerous fighter.
02:57Williams and Pater is a guy who mastered his style.
03:00He understands his style.
03:01He understands what he's coming to do.
03:04But with July 12th, they don't know what I'm coming to do.
03:07I got different things to my game.
03:09I can boxing move.
03:10I can stand there in the pocket and make you miss.
03:13I can do a hundred different things to him to where he don't know what's happened in July 12th.
03:18So, it's going to be an amazing fight.
03:21Well, you had a great performance against Josh Padley.
03:24And on X, it seems like you're trying to say you're going to hurt somebody.
03:27Like, you're really going to hurt Cepeda.
03:29Is that what you're going in there to do?
03:31It's very possible.
03:32Like, it's possible.
03:33These people think I can't crack.
03:35These people think, oh, all you do is run.
03:38That's the wrong logic of me.
03:40I'm a fighter at the end of the day.
03:42We get in there and I got to fight.
03:45I'm going to fight.
03:46And I'm not coming in there to lose.
03:49I'm not into that.
03:50And William Zepeda is not a guy that's going to allow you to just move all around the ring and not cut out the ring.
03:56He's not a guy that's not going to allow you to engage in the fight.
04:00So, I'm not here to lose.
04:02I'm here to win, bro.
04:03Obviously.
04:04So, Josh Padley, he went on to win against an undefeated fighter.
04:08Do you think he could beat guys in the top 10 like Frank Martin, Andy Cruz, guys like that?
04:14I don't know.
04:14I don't know.
04:15I don't know.
04:15We got to see more of him to be able to tell.
04:18But guys my size, if you're not as skillful as I am, I suggest you go to 130.
04:26So, you're just proving your greatness.
04:28Oh, I'm a hell of a fighter.
04:29No doubt.
04:30I'm a hell of a fighter.
04:31Okay, last question.
04:32Now, you've been calling yourself the best fighter in the world years ago before you had an opportunity to actually show it.
04:37So, I mean, back when Bud was probably number eight, you was like, you're still the best in the world.
04:43You know, now he's number one or whatever in some people's list.
04:46So, honestly, even though you feel like you're the best, where do you think you should rank right now according to your accomplishments and what you've done already on that pound for pound list?
04:56What number?
04:57I mean, I know I ain't at the top of the list as far as accomplishments and opponents that have been in front of me.
05:05But I do think for me to be a three-division champ at 27 years old is just outstanding.
05:14It's not a normal thing for you to go win a belt at 26, 30, unify, become Ring Magazine champion, go up to 35, win a title off the rip.
05:27It's just not a normal thing to be done in the first several years of your career.
05:32That's something that people do their entire careers after being in the game 15 years or so.
05:39Yeah, yeah, it's true.
05:40So, truthfully, I think that I should be on the list.
05:44I'm not saying if you put me 10, I'm cool.
05:47You put me 9, I'm cool.
05:48You put me 8, I'm cool.
05:49I'm not tripping.
05:50All right, so this is really the last question.
05:53July 12th, you're fighting William Zepeda here in New York City.
05:58But you used to say that a lot of people were ducking you, even William Zepeda.
06:02He's been ducking me.
06:02We caught him.
06:03Right, so you feel like he was forced into this fight against you, July 12th?
06:06Here's the thing when I say he's ducking me.
06:09It don't just be the fighter.
06:11The fighter has teams and people around them that stops fights from happening.
06:16So, I'm not going to say specifically it was William Zepeda.
06:20I'm going to say it was William Zepeda's team and everybody around them that know how good I am
06:24and how special of a talent that I am, that didn't want the fight to happen and been ducking me.
06:29So, they have been ducking me, but we got him.
06:33We got him.
06:34We tracked him.
06:35And July 12th, I'm coming in there to put on the best performance of my life.
06:39You heard it.
06:40July 12th, Shakur Stevenson versus William Zepeda, brought to you by Ring Magazine, live on DAZN.
