Sergio Mora recently gave his breakdown of this weekend’s junior welterweight title fight between Teofimo Lopez and Shakur Stevenson. Here, Mora explains why he thinks he believes Shakur is the justifiable favorite in this matchup and what Teofimo will need to do in order to have a chance at keeping his belt.
Mora on Shakur’s style going against Teofimo
“Shakur Stevenson, you can’t touch him. He’s hard to beat. He has a style where he’s like a cheetah from that left-handed stance. I’ve never even seen him get rocked or hurt. That type of style, people will call it amateur-ish, I just call it complete. If no one can lay a glove on you, why change it? If you’re doing it on multiple levels…why change it?”
On Teofimo being the underdog in his title defense
“I got to keep it real. I would love to see an upset, I love upsets, but nah. Shakur Stevenson’s going to be hard to beat.”
On what Teofimo has to do to win
“It’s not being aggressive ‘cause I think that falls into the hands of Shakur. We saw that with Zepeda…I think it’s a little bit of both, being athletic aggressive, which Teofimo is. Body shots, ignoring the head, don’t even try to aim at the head. You aim at the shoulders, biceps, and the body, you try to steal rounds and you try to rough them up. Anytime you do break that distance, which is hard to do, you rough him up, you get your points. Anytime you have a close round, maybe they’ll sway it your way.
“What you don’t want to do is just be on the outside posturing with a guy like Shakur because he’s just going to pick you apart with that style. How I would fight Shakur, and I know it’s hard to do, any time he punches with the straight punches, I will punch at his elbows. It’s an annoying thing. Every time I fought real tall guys I would punch at elbows…Sooner or later that starts hurting, sooner or later you want to keep those [arms] holstered up…then you need your upper body movement and Duran his ass up. You got to go in there and dig them ribs.”
