{"id":459704,"date":"2026-02-07T12:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T12:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/459704\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T12:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T12:38:09","slug":"shakur-stevenson-puts-one-fighter-above-terence-crawford-in-the-goat-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/459704\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson puts one fighter above Terence Crawford in the GOAT debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shakur Stevenson<\/a> placed one man above Terence Crawford<\/a>, labelling him as the \u2018GOAT\u2019, when asked to rank a selection of fighters.<\/p>\n

The WBC lightweight titlist will collide with Teofimo Lopez<\/a> at Madison Square Garden in New York tonight, hoping to become a four-division world champion.<\/p>\n

With notable victories over the likes of Oscar Valdez, Jamel Herring and William Zepeda, Stevenson is already considered by many to be a top 10 pound-for-pound star.<\/p>\n

But of course, a victory over WBO super-lightweight champion Lopez would only elevate his position in the pound-for-pound conversation, perhaps even placing him among the likes of Dmitry Bivol and Jesse Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

One man who has played a key role in Stevenson\u2019s development is Crawford, who many considered to be the sport\u2019s leading fighter before he retired last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a former three-division undisputed champion, \u2018Bud\u2019 has not only been a long-time friend of Stevenson but, understandably, has also represented a source of inspiration.<\/p>\n

In that sense, it could be considered somewhat surprising that the 28-year-old placed Pernell Whitaker above Crawford in a conversation regarding \u2018GOAT\u2019 status.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Daily Mail Boxing<\/a>, Stevenson gave Whitaker the top spot while placing Crawford in the slightly less glamourous \u2018legend\u2019 category.<\/p>\n

When considering that Whitaker is often regarded as the greatest defensive technician of all time<\/a>, though, it becomes slightly less surprising that Stevenson \u2013 a crafty operator himself \u2013 believes he just narrowly edges \u2018Bud\u2019.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on the list, Stevenson placed himself and Lopez alongside Julio Cesar Chavez and Aaron Pryor in the \u2018great\u2019 category, perhaps believing that they have already established themselves as pound-for-pound greats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson placed one man above Terence Crawford, labelling him as the \u2018GOAT\u2019, when asked to rank a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-459704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}