Shakur Stevenson recently beat Teofimo Lopez to capture the WBO super lightweight world title, and the sanctioning body has installed a new No.1 contender but there\u2019s already one glaring issue.<\/p>\n
They won\u2019t ever fight even if it would make for an epic contest.<\/p>\n
Stevenson climbed to the upper echelon of the pound-for-pound rankings as his Lopez win secured four-weight world champion status, adding Teo\u2019s name to Jamel Herring, Oscar Valdez, and William Zepeda as elite wins.<\/p>\n
But the performance wasn\u2019t the only headline generated as, shortly after, the WBC stripped Stevenson of his title at lightweight over an apparent failure to pay $100,000 in sanctioning fees, even though the WBC did not sanction the Lopez fight. The WBO did.<\/p>\n
Now, the WBO has installed an extraordinary fighter as Stevenson\u2019s No.1 contender at 140 pounds. It\u2019s someone who would test Stevenson and create for a climactic fight. But, considering what Stevenson and this fighter have said about one another through the years, they\u2019ll only refuse to actually box.<\/p>\n
The WBO\u2019s No.1 contender, Keyshawn Davis, has spoken before about why he\u2019d never fight Stevenson.<\/p>\n
\u201cShakur, I genuinely have real love for you.\u201d <\/p>\n
Speaking to Ring Magazine, Davis said: \u201cWhen I was going through a deep depression \u2026 talking to Shakur about how I was thinking, feeling, and he was giving advice that I really have taken. He pulling up on me, making sure I\u2019m straight. He was there for my worse times, and I\u2019ll never forget that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a feeling shared by Stevenson, who told Fight Hype last year: \u201cI already told y\u2019all, there\u2019s only one person I wouldn\u2019t fight, but I\u2019m down with fighting anybody so I wouldn\u2019t mind getting in some s**t like that if it make sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if it\u2019s me and Keyshawn in there I wouldn\u2019t wanna do that s**t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here is WBO\u2019s top-15 rankings at 140, outside of Shakur, who is the champion:<\/p>\n
Keyshawn Davis<\/p>\n
Teofimo Lopez<\/p>\n
Alfredo Santiago<\/p>\n
Lindolfo Delgado<\/p>\n
Alberto Puello<\/p>\n
Arbold Barboza Jr.<\/p>\n
Emiliano Vargas<\/p>\n
Ernesto Mercado<\/p>\n
Adam Azin<\/p>\n
Hendri Cedeno<\/p>\n
Jack Rafferty<\/p>\n
Arthur Biyarslanov<\/p>\n
Yaser Al Ghena <\/p>\n
Kuntae Lee<\/p>\n
Faisal Abubakari<\/p>\n
Considering the list, it\u2019s perhaps evidence that Stevenson\u2019s best fights are outside the WBO\u2019s rankings. A bout against the British boxer Conor Benn could be one of the more lucrative options, but he, too, could take on the likes of Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia or Mario Barrios, or Isaac Cruz.<\/p>\n
If he were able to drop back to lightweight, he could also consider turning the pressure up on Naoya Inoue, who has yet to fully ingratiate himself to the American public, with only around 8,000 people combining to generate a $4 million gate for when the Japanese knockout puncher held a Cinco de Mayo event against Ramon Cardenas.<\/p>\n
Gervonta \u2018Tank\u2019 Davis would always have been an ideal opponent for Inoue to fight, to maximize attention State-side. But with Davis out of the picture due to civil issues, Stevenson could leap-frog him in those sweepstakes, just like he leapfrogged Tank as a face for American boxing, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson recently beat Teofimo Lopez to capture the WBO super lightweight world title, and the sanctioning body…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-468289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}