Does Shakur Stevenson Want To Fight Jamel Herring?

Shakur Stevenson is letting his feelings be known on the situation with Jamel Herring.

Stevenson and Herring are friends. Herring has said that fighting Stevenson will always be on the back burner due to their friendship. The problem is, Herring is the WBO Junior-Lightweight champion and Stevenson is the mandatory contender.

Speaking to BoxingScene.com, the undefeated Stevenson said that a fight with Herring wouldn’t be personal.

“It’s the fight business. It’s all business at the end of the day. I’m still cool with Jamel and Bo-Mac and everybody in his camp and everything. Ain’t no hard feelings or nothing, but it’s business. At the end of the day, me and him, we’ve gotta fight each other. I can’t turn down no title shot.”

Herring has been pushing to fight Carl Frampton next. If that is the case, then Stevenson’s co-manager, Josh Dubin, hopes Herring decides to vacate his title.

“We saw that Herring tried to announce a fight between him and Frampton on ESPN. If that’s what he wants to do, and that’s the only fight that he wants, what we would ask him to do is just go ahead and vacate. Because if he’s not gonna fight Shakur, there’s no reason to hold up the process of us putting together a fight for the vacant title.”

At the age of 23, Stevenson has quickly made a name for himself. His record has been spotless at 14-0 with eight knockouts. He’s fresh off a sixth-round knockout victory over Felix Caraballo back on June 9.

Herring is coming off a successful title defense over Jonathan Oquendo. Herring won the fight via disqualification after Oquendo’s headbutt caused Herring vision problems. The headbutt was deemed intentional.