{"id":370206,"date":"2026-01-14T23:04:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370206\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T23:04:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:04:06","slug":"paulie-malignaggi-picks-winner-in-teofimo-lopez-vs-shakur-stevenson-i-give-him-the-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370206\/","title":{"rendered":"Paulie Malignaggi picks winner in Teofimo Lopez vs Shakur Stevenson: &#8220;I give him the edge&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following the conclusion of <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/teofimo-lopez\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Teofimo Lopez<\/a> vs. <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/shakur-stevenson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shakur Stevenson<\/a>, boxing may have a glimpse of a future pound-for-pound number one \u2014 at least according to <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/paulie-malignaggi\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paulie Malignaggi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/paulie-malignaggi-recalls-the-night-that-flipped-the-switch-in-his-boxing-brain\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The 45-year-old former two-weight world champion<\/a> has carved out a respected role as a pundit and, like many, remains torn over the outcome of Lopez\u2019s WBO super-lightweight title defence against Stevenson at Madison Square Garden on January 31.<\/p>\n<p>The clash caps a busy month for the sport during what is typically a quiet period. For Lopez (22-1, 13 KOs) and Stevenson (24-0, 11 KOs), however, this is about far more than a world title. It is a defining moment in a career phase that can shape legacies and propel a fighter towards greatness.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aoqgm9RAqkk&amp;t=839s\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FightHype<\/a> recently caught up with \u201cMagic Man\u201d Malignaggi to gauge his thoughts on the intriguing match-up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a difficult fight. You wanna give Shakur the edge and I do but Teo is not someone to play with because when he\u2019s got his back to the wall he becomes the most difficult guy to deal with and that\u2019s when he\u2019s got his best performances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen people feel like he\u2019s gonna win easy he\u2019s got his worst performances. It\u2019s one of those times where Teo could make it really interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both Lopez and Stevenson are already recognised as pound-for-pound talents \u2014 whether in the top 10 or top 20 remains open to debate \u2014 but Malignaggi believes one of them is destined for the very top of the sport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShakur for me is a possible pound-for-pound number one at one time but if there\u2019s a guy that could be a threat to him it\u2019s Teo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>January 31 may settle the debate, or at least push one man decisively closer to boxing\u2019s highest summit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the conclusion of Teofimo Lopez vs. Shakur Stevenson, boxing may have a glimpse of a future pound-for-pound&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-370206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}