{"id":525040,"date":"2026-03-09T18:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T18:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/525040\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T18:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T18:17:07","slug":"shakur-stevenson-names-his-biggest-threat-at-140-ill-fight-him-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/525040\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson names ‘his biggest threat’ at 140: “I’ll fight him first”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shakur Stevenson<\/a>\u2019s future weight is unknown after his plans were disrupted by the WBC. Although, the Newark southpaw now seems to be considering remaining at super-lightweight.<\/p>\n

The American moved up to 140lbs and dethroned Teofimo Lopez<\/a> to claim the WBO super-lightweight world title, but the undefeated sensation had planned on returning to 135lbs and defending his WBC belt thereafter.<\/p>\n

However, the WBC then decided to strip Stevenson of his title, leaving him contemplating whether to campaign at lightweight, super-lightweight or even welterweight \u2013 though he has since ruled the last option out, at least for now.<\/p>\n

There are a number of options for Stevenson in each of those divisions and in a fan Q&A on X<\/a>, Stevenson was asked to order a list of possible opponents (Ryan Garcia, Raymond Muratalla, O\u2019Shaquie Foster, Gary Antuanne Russell and Dalton Smith) by preference.<\/p>\n

Stevenson revealed that Garcia would be his preferred option but also admitted that he believes fellow super-lightweight world champion Gary Antuanne Russell to be his \u2018biggest threat\u2019 at the weight.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut of those names, I think that Blacks and Mexicans sell the most when it comes down to selling [tickets]. So, I would say Ryan first, Muratalla second, Gary next because, out of all of them guys, he might be the biggest threat, if I am being honest with you.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, I watched Gary Russell whoop Shock\u2019s [O\u2019Shaquie Foster] a** before. So, I\u2019m going to definitely choose Gary, then I\u2019ll go with Shock and then Dalton Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell won the WBA super-lightweight world title against Jos\u00e9 Valenzuela last year and is coming off a tough defence against Andy Hiraoka. A match-up against Stevensons not only provides an intriguing match-up for fans, but a welcome unification.<\/p>\n

Shakur, however, has not ruled out dropping down to lightweight even despite no longer holding the WBC belt in the division.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson\u2019s future weight is unknown after his plans were disrupted by the WBC. Although, the Newark southpaw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-525040","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\/525040","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=525040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}