By: Hans Themistode
Shakur Stevenson was fairly confident that Chris Colbert was going to get the job done. The highly ranked super featherweight contender from Brooklyn, New York, strolled into his showdown against late replacement Hector Luis Garcia brimming with an excessive amount of hubris on February 26th.
Yet, despite the betting world standing firmly in his corner, Colbert was unable to withstand the monumental offensive onslaught of Garcia. With Colbert hitting the deck for the first time in his career in the seventh round, the normally aggressive New Yorker fought the duration of their contest cautiously. As a result, Garcia would go on to win a lopsided unanimous decision.
Following his jaw-dropping defeat, Colbert explained exactly why he failed to bite down on his mouthpiece and fight Garcia when the going got tough.
“I wasn’t feeling myself tonight,” said Colbert during his post-fight interview. “I wasn’t going to go in there and do nothing stupid and get caught with no dumb shots.”
In the mind of Stevenson, Colbert’s explanation simply wasn’t good enough. For the past several months, both Stevenson and Colbert hurled several vulgar verbal threats at one another. Although Colbert claimed that the current WBO super featherweight titlist was immensely talented, he questioned Stevenson’s “dog” mentality.
Now, however, with Colbert offering little resistance during the championship rounds against Garcia, Stevenson openly ripped him for his efforts.
“I think overall, he showed a lot of b*tch,” said Stevenson on Cigar Talk. “He a p*ssy. If I’m down ten rounds, you ain’t got no choice but to fight. All you got to do is action at this point. I feel like that’s a b*tch mentality. At the end of the day, you lost. I feel like that man didn’t go 100 percent, he was down ten rounds and started running. I feel like once he was in that situation that he got in and he’s down ten rounds and been dropped, I feel like you got two rounds left, all you can do is go fight and try to get the knockout. Me personally, that’s what I would’ve done.”
While Stevenson was fully expecting Colbert to pull off the win, he isn’t entirely surprised by Colbert’s actions. With both Stevenson and Colbert growing up on the amateur scene together, the former Olympic silver medalist reveals that this isn’t the first time that he’s witnessed Colbert fold under pressure.
“When you in the gym and you fighting and sparring, you know if you a dog or not. I knew for a fact he was capping (lying). I knew him his whole life. Dude was doing this at 15 years old and would go in the ring and then get beat up. That’s who he is.”