{"id":403895,"date":"2026-02-02T13:56:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/403895\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T13:56:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T13:56:06","slug":"andre-ward-sees-only-one-winner-in-shakur-stevenson-vs-conor-benn-at-147-no-disrespect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/403895\/","title":{"rendered":"Andre Ward sees only one winner in Shakur Stevenson vs Conor Benn at 147: “No disrespect”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shakur Stevenson proved his elite level once again this past weekend, defeated Teofimo Lopez and barely breaking a sweat while doing it. Next, he is targeting another move up in weight to face Conor Benn.<\/p>\n

Stevenson won all but one round on the three scorecards to become a four-weight world champion<\/a>, negating any threat posed by Lopez at a sold-out Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

Post-fight, he faced off with Benn \u2014 who is coming off a victory over Chris Eubank Jr but is yet to fight at world title level \u2014 making it clear he is willing to move up yet another division to beat him.<\/p>\n

Speaking to IFL TV<\/a> in the aftermath of the win, Hall of Famer Andre Ward \u2014 a friend and mentor to Stevenson \u2014 assessed the idea of the fight and sees his man winning handily despite the weight disadvantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely [I like that fight]. Conor\u2019s always dangerous. He\u2019s gonna come forward, but, man, it\u2019s gonna look a lot like that [Lopez win]. It\u2019s no disrespect to Conor Benn. I respect what he does and how he does it, but [Shakur\u2019s] skill set is different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the theatre from both men, one obstacle is the rehydration clause. Stevenson is adamant that he wants Benn to weigh no more than 157lbs, ten over the welterweight limit, on the morning of the fight.<\/a> It\u2019s something Benn, despite Eubank facing the same stipulation at middleweight for their two encounters, is not keen on.<\/p>\n

It is a dealbreaker that may see Benn instead face either Rolando Romero or the winner of Mario Barrios vs Ryan Garcia for a world title. Stevenson has plenty of options, including a drop back down to lightweight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson proved his elite level once again this past weekend, defeated Teofimo Lopez and barely breaking a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-403895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403895","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=403895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}