The response was immediate.

One fan accused Stevenson of talking about major fights without taking steps to make them happen.

“The fuck is when are you??? You ran to Zuffa to avoid Shock??? You didn’t want to smoke with Devin, if you’re waiting for the right moment it makes sense if you fight, now you’re trying so tough to keep it 0,” the critic wrote.

Shakur either really doesn’t get it yet or is trying to masterfully do public relations damage control to keep his name among the division’s elite.

If Dana White runs Zuffa Boxing by the UFC playbook, the league format completely changes the game. In this world, you don’t call on top-level players or Matchroom players because you’re locked in a closed ecosystem. The UFC does not partner with Bellator or PFL to stage superfights, and they have no intention of sending their prized fighters to fight on a rival network under a different promotional banner.

If Shakur really thinks he can just pocket a huge salary at Zuffa and still easily land Gervonta Davis, Devin Haney, or Teofimo Lopez, he’s in for a rude awakening. The promotional walls are bulky, and Dana White is not known for playing well with classic boxing promoters.

At this point, Shakur still speaks like an independent performer who can dictate his own path. But if Zuffa is building a league, it has simply traded that independence for a corporate structure. He may find himself trapped in a gilded cage completely isolated from the struggles that he claims define the legacy.

If the UFC model is the plan, it guarantees financial security but risks complete isolation from the wider boxing world. By the time he finishes his tour of duty and realizes that mass promotion fights will be off the table forever, the physical attributes that made him a four-division champion may already be gone.

Former two-division world champion and top trainer Buddy McGirt has suggested that one fighter, between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, will likely go into the fight with one clear advantage.

According to reports, both pound-for-pound legends will face each other in a professional rematch scheduled for September 26.

It was originally proposed to take place at the Sphere in Las Vegas on September 19 just for those dealing with the Netflix event to choose a different date and location.

However, despite the uncertainty, it appears that both fighters have agreed to collide in a fully sanctioned fight, with Mayweather graciously putting his 50-0 record on the line.

The 49-year-old hasn’t fought professionally since a 10th-round knockout of Conor McGregor in 2017, which came just over two years after he edged ‘Pac Man’ by unanimous decision.

Pacquiao, on the other hand, has competed in eight professional fights since their first meeting, most recently drawing to a 12-round draw with then-WBC welterweight champion Mario Barrios last July.

McGirt said that because of this increased activity in recent years ESNEWS that it favors the 47-year-old Filipino, even if neither player can realistically claim to be a role model of activism.

“I am [going to] follow Pacquiao for the straightforward fact that Floyd didn’t fight – e.g [in] fight-fight – for how long?

“These exhibition fights, you can’t really count them. Then again, I’ll go with Pacquiao, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Floyd manages to do it.”

Although Pacquiao has fought more recently than Mayweather, his draw with Barrios ended a nearly four-year hiatus that followed his unanimous decision loss to Yordenis Ugas.

When Fury later tried to lure Joshua into the ring to restart the fight, Joshua says he had other things on his mind.

“I was there on a scouting mission. I wanted to see that this was the guy I wanted to fight, right? I was there to see what would happen, how he was doing, and I saw some good things, but I also saw some bad things,” Joshua told Mr. Verzace in Ring Magazine.

It’s amazing how disconnected the sound of Joshua’s breakdown is. He looks at a guy who’s just slogged through a twelve-round track meet without posing any threat, and treats it like a deep, philosophical chess match in which he “saw some good things and some bad things.”

Good things? What good things? Fury looked exactly like he is: a middle-aged fighter on a long hiatus who completely lacked the trigger-pulling ability that made him elite. Makhmudov is the definition of a restricted, lumbering domestic-level player who would be completely consumed by any legitimate top-15 player, let alone a top-tier player.

The fact that Fury couldn’t or wouldn’t get him out of there tells you everything you need to know about what his reflexes and strength are like right now.

“I would have liked to see a break in the game,” Joshua said.

Joshua stating that he would “prefer to see downtime” and noting his lack of “intent to harm him” is the understatement of the century. He treats the glaring, neon-lit sign of the fall as if it were just a minor tactical choice by Fury. Anyone with eyes could see that Fury was working difficult.

You wonder if Joshua is just trying to be extra polite, or if he’s so programmed into his own bubble that he can’t just come out and state the obvious: the version of Fury that ran the division is gone.

“I didn’t really see any intention to hurt Makhmudov at any point,” Joshua said.

Joshua is a leading corporate brand and knows that completely destroying a product kills pay-per-view purchase rates before contracts are even signed. If he goes out there and tells the public that Fury is completely shot and washed, he undermines the entire value of their massive domestic clash. Keeping the ambiguity in the “good things and bad things” routine keeps the plot alive and protects the box office.

AJ always had this ponderous, literal way of processing things, almost like he was reading cue cards in his own mind. He often has difficulty analyzing things dynamically on the fly, which is why his judgments can seem so basic and distant. Instead of seeing a guy doing physical work and losing his reflexes, Joshua just looks at it as a checklist: did he win? Yes. Did he stop him? NO.

It’s a combination of corporate protection and a real lack of deep analytical vision. He can’t or won’t see Fury fighting a guy who has no interest in lasting twelve rounds against an elite heavyweight.

“Fury is just another number,” AJ said. I don’t put him on a pedestal. He is not above anyone.

This is the one moment where the corporate filter shifted and the real, unvarnished Joshua emerged.

When he says, “Fury is just another number,” he removes all the hype, the accumulation of promotion, and the mythical status that has surrounded Fury for years. This is the behavior of a fighter who, on a scouting mission, looked around the ring, saw a middle-aged guy fighting a tight-fisted opponent, and realized the boogeyman was gone.

For a long time, Fury occupied this untouchable space in British boxing, but his performance against Makhmudov clearly dispelled Joshua’s illusions. The saying, “He is above no one” is the most telling part. It shows that Joshua finally sees him as a human opponent who can be defeated, rather than as an unbeatable heavyweight king. Even if Joshua’s overall analysis is basic, this particular realization represents a huge shift in psychology leading up to their fight.