Why did Shakur Stevenson even sign with Zuffa? Was he promised fights they couldn’t actually offer? Was he told they’d be signing X, Y, and Z, and thus setting up actual big fights for him? Because when he signed, the best option on Zuffa’s actual roster was Rayo Valenzuela. When he was offered Rayo Valenzuela, he turned it down and got his release.

There was no other fight they could offer, really. Richardson Hitchins? I guess, but while that may be a better fight on paper, it’s not really any bigger, and Shakur doesn’t want to fight at an actual 147, either. And with Zuffa thus far avoiding the “in-between” divisions like 140, where Stevenson last fought, what was even the plan there?

The whole thing was baffling from both sides and I don’t think either of them look good coming out. The concerns about Zuffa’s future — well, I’m not concerned for them, really — are obvious, if they’re not going to be backed by an absolute ton of Saudi money, then they’re not going to go much of anywhere, it’s that simple. Dana White has been a very successful promoter, but he is not a boxing promoter, and the last month or so has had him looking completely out of his depth in this sport. It’s just not the same as being the head of a dominant MMA company. White does not appear to be very good at fighting off the back foot, as it were.

Still, I don’t think you can let Stevenson escape any blame here; he doesn’t look good, either. I think sort of like White, he tried to play a hand with the assumption he had a lot more leverage than he really does, and now it’s back to the drawing board. Shakur will find a fight out there, and O’Shaquie Foster might be a lot more interesting to him now, but this was a messy chapter for Stevenson just as it was for Zuffa.

Let’s be honest, it’s pretty hard not to see this as a much worse look for Zuffa Boxing than Shakur Stevenson. Between the promoter wars with Dana White vs Eddie Hearn, all of the big proclamations and chest puffing, only to have stalled out this second half of the year, to now losing a P4P talent who was the best fighter on your roster (even if not the most exciting), to the Saudis reportedly scaling way back on financial support, Zuffa has gone from power player to what could at best be considered a fringe contender with no real prospects of ever breaking through.

It’s been a rough, rough several months for Zuffa, and the last few weeks have been the roughest of all. There are genuine questions as to the future viability of Zuffa, while Shakur’s prospects are certainly much better than that. It’s not even a close debate, as far as I can tell.

I couldn’t possibly think any less of Zuffa Boxing, so it’s gotta be Shakur. At least Shakur has accomplished something in boxing, right? Still waiting for Zuffa to do anything beyond spend someone else’s money and do an aggressively mediocre BOXXXXXXXXXXXXER imitation over in the UK. And endeavor to ruin the few legal and political protections fighters have earned in my lifetime, obviously.

Nobody is making specific allegations or pointing fingers, but what’s the presumption? That Zuffa wasn’t negotiating on the level? That they didn’t offer Shakur a dollar amount he felt he deserved? Isn’t that basically the story of UFC history writ small? Is that a surprise? The only surprise is that Dana White let him go quickly and peacefully.

Shakur’s big complaint with Top Rank was either that they couldn’t get him paid or couldn’t get him big fights, and either way they’d stalled his career. Well, now he couldn’t do anything with Zuffa, either. What next? Oscar? The guy who won’t match any of his fighters well unless they strongarm him contractually or walk away entirely? Eddie? The guy who won’t overpay for anyone, even the guys he discovered and developed from nowhere? What are your options when the guy with easiest access to the Saudi checkbook can’t get you what you expect?

Shakur looks worse, and is in a worse position. Zuffa as a promotion would have to die entirely (Christmas is just eight weeks away!) to come out of this looking worse.

This is honestly a scalier question than it looks at first glance. In a vacuum, it’s Stevenson by a mile; scuttlebutt is that he was demanding exorbitant sums, turned down a career-high payday to fight what should have been a layup in “Rayo” Valenzuela, and tried to force Devin Haney to choose between a catchweight and a rehydration clause.

When it all went tits up and Stevenson asked for his release, Zuffa gave it to him. The easy takeaway is that Stevenson signed with an organization that vowed not to work with any of its competitors, negotiated with its competitors anyway on Stevenson’s behalf while working to satisfy financial requirements that greatly exceeded anything Stevenson had received to date, and allowed a gracious exit when it didn’t work.

Problem is, it’s not a vacuum. Zuffa set themselves up for this when they offered Conor Benn, a domestic-level fighter who’s never held a world title, $15 million to fight what remained of Regis Prograis. They set a precedent they couldn’t maintain in what I presume was an effort to coax more talent into signing with them and now they’re reaping the consequences.

Thus, the whole question of whether Stevenson is a diva for wanting the same kind of money that Zuffa had proved willing to fork over on a far lesser ends up a bit of a wash. Unfortunately for Stevenson, that leaves the Haney negotiation as the tiebreaker and it’s a punk-ass move to call out a welterweight champion while refusing to fight unrestricted at welterweight, so he loses.