Shakur Stevenson is the latest power player to enter the fray at 135 pounds.
The former two-division champion successfully made his lightweight debut with a sixth-round stoppage win against Shuichiro Yoshino on April 8, and he’s already calling out the top dogs in the division.
The 25-year-old Houston-based, Newark native recently stated that if he were to fight Gervonta Davis, it would be the biggest and best fight in boxing.
Davis is fresh off a dominant seventh-round knockout win against Ryan Garcia that has captured the intrigue of the 2016 Olympics silver medalist Stevenson (20-0, 10 KOs).
“Tank looked sharp, real sharp. He boxed real good. I think Ryan was like preschool. Ryan wasn’t on that top level,” Stevenson told TMZ. “When they talk about the four kings, they were all really special, and I don’t think Ryan was on that level. I don’t think Ryan was that good.
“[Garcia] didn’t know his distance. He was looking for one left hook the entire fight. He threw a left hook three times in a row and got clipped. Everyone knows that when you fight Tank, you can’t do something three times in a row because his brain is like a computer. He picks up on it.
“There’s the elite level where you know what you’re doing and understand, and you got the ring IQ and ring smarts. Ryan just didn’t have any of that. He went in there fighting with his heart instead of using his brain.
“I think [Garcia] was making a lot of mistakes. He was tall for no reason, and he doesn’t understand distance and things that could have helped him in the fight. I can’t blame his coach. It’s more like the training he had since he was a little kid.
“He doesn’t use his height and range. He likes to make things a [certain] way. That’s what got him beat up and picked apart.”
A potential super fight pitting Stevenson and Davis would require Top Rank and Premier Boxing Champions to work together and stage a co-promotion.
Davis can be considered Showtime’s top commodity and priority in boxing at this point after pulling in approximately 1.2 million pay-per-view buys for his bout against Garcia. Stevenson, meanwhile, is on the shortlist for being one of Top Rank’s top attractions for broadcast partner ESPN.
Davis originally had plans to fight three times in 2023 and he’s previously stated that his preferred next opponents are either Stevenson or Devin Haney.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer, and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, through email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com, or via www.ManoukAkopyan.com.