Shakur Stevenson wants Teofimo Lopez to stop looking for alternative opponents for his next fight and to focus just on fighting him.
Lopez Seeks Bigger Payday Fight
Teofimo (22-1, 13 KOs) said today that his team reached out to Ryan Garcia’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, about a fight, and they rejected it.
That would have been a bigger fight for Lopez financially than to face Shakur (24-0, 11 KOs), who isn’t a big name with casual boxing fans and has been fighting on undercards since leaving Top Rank. Stevenson isn’t popular enough to headline without a bigger name as his opponent to allow him to hitch a ride.
If you’re Lopez, you need to keep looking for other options before settling for a fight against Shakur because there are bigger paydays out there. The money would be better for Teofimo to fight guys like Ryan, Devin Haney, and Terence Crawford.
Stevenson’s Demand for a Fight
“F**** them. Stop talking to other people. I’m right here, p*****,” said Shakur Stevenson on X, reacting to Teofimo Lopez saying he’d reached out to Ryan Garcia for a fight.
“My team told Oscar DeLa Hoya we’d fight Ryan Garcia next, and his management turned it down,” said Teofimo Lopez on X.
Why Teofimo Can’t Win on Points
Fighting Shakur would involve being given the business by the judges, with them scoring rounds to him based on a few clean shots. We saw a lot of that in his last fight against William Zepeda.
Stevenson was out-punched and out-landed in every round of the fight by Zepeda, but the judges gave him almost every round due to him landing two or three clean shots. That would easily happen to Teofimo, too. Getting robbed wouldn’t be good for Lopez’s career.
Stevenson has got a lot of backing for his career right now. Unless the money is outrageous for Teofimo, he should look in another direction. If the judges aren’t going to give the victory to him anyway, no matter what he does, why fight Shakur? The Zepeda and Edwin De Los Santos fights showed that it’s impossible to win a decision against Stevenson.