Shakur Stevenson says a fight with Devin Haney was close enough to schedule until one email from Haney’s lawyer ended it. On X on Oct. 16, Stevenson laid out the timeline. According to him, the two sides first settled on 144 pounds, then moved to 145, and then, with the deal nearly done, Haney’s legal team wrote back saying he would only fight at 147.
“At the 11th hour, after agreeing to 144 and then 145, DeeHoe had his lawyer email and say that he would only fight at 147,” Stevenson wrote. He finished with five words: “Big waste of everybody’s time.”
That’s Stevenson’s version, and so far it’s the only one on the record. No public response from Haney or his camp appears in the reporting available to Knockout Daily. If Haney has a reason for the jump, nobody has heard it yet.
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Three pounds that blew up a deal
The numbers matter here. Stevenson currently holds the WBO and The Ring junior welterweight titles, per MMA Mania. A 144 catchweight already sits above his division. Moving to 145 was a second concession upward. The 147 demand is the welterweight limit, so it would have dragged the entire fight into a full weight class above where Stevenson holds his belts. Agreeing to 144 and then 145 suggests both camps were trading pounds in good faith. Stevenson says that stopped right before the finish line.
This is also the second big fight to slip away from Stevenson in recent weeks. Bloody Elbow reported that he had been in talks to face Manny Pacquiao on the Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua card, but those conversations reportedly stalled because Netflix didn’t want to pay four huge purses on one event. Pacquiao, 47, is now set to appear on that card anyway, according to a report from Faz (@FazSportz). His opponent hasn’t been named. Pacquiao’s last outing was a majority draw with Mario Barrios in a world title fight.
Where Stevenson goes now
Stevenson still has a serious platform. He’s one of the headline names on the Zuffa Boxing roster, which keeps expanding. The promotion just added WBC middleweight champion Carlos Adames (25-1-1), who joins Stevenson, Conor Benn and cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia. Dana White’s operation has said it wants to make the fights fans want to see. A collapsed Haney negotiation is exactly the sort of headache that promise was supposed to fix, and it says plenty that Stevenson took his frustration to X instead of letting it leak out through a promoter.
My take: if Stevenson’s account holds up, he has every right to be furious. A fighter who moves up twice from his own division has already met the other side halfway, and a lawyer’s email at the last minute is a lousy way to tell him all of that counted for nothing. The “DeeHoe” nickname is petty, sure. Stevenson has still put specific numbers in public, and until Haney answers with numbers of his own, 144 and 145 are the only figures anyone has to argue with.
