{"id":427438,"date":"2026-02-15T18:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T18:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/427438\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T18:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T18:54:07","slug":"paulie-malignaggi-sees-only-one-winner-in-shakur-stevenson-vs-conor-benn-at-147","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/427438\/","title":{"rendered":"Paulie Malignaggi sees only one winner in Shakur Stevenson vs Conor Benn at 147"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former world champion Paulie Malignaggi<\/a> has offered his honest thoughts on a potential welterweight clash between Shakur Stevenson and Conor Benn.<\/p>\n

The pair came face-to-face shortly after Stevenson claimed his WBO super-lightweight title last month, dethroning Teofimo Lopez to become a four-division world champion.<\/p>\n

It was a truly dominant performance, in his first outing at 140lbs, that saw the 28-year-old drop just one round at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

As a result, Stevenson has firmly cemented himself as a top five pound-for-pound star, while Benn\u2019s credentials at world level remain untested.<\/p>\n

The Brit moved up to 160lbs and lost a unanimous decision to Chris Eubank Jr in April 2025, before outpointing his rival by a considerably wider margin<\/a> later that year. Eubank had signed to keep to a same-day rehydration limit of 170lbs on both occasions. Benn\u2019s victory in November has elevated his profile in the wider sporting world, with other fighters now recognising the financial value of fighting the 29-year-old.<\/p>\n

One of them, as it happens, is Stevenson, as he called out Benn<\/a> \u2013 who now looks to campaign at 147lbs \u2013 immediately after his victory over Lopez.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Betting Offers<\/a>, though, Malignaggi has opined that their possible welterweight match is unlikely to be even remotely competitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Conor Benn vs Shakur Stevenson sells because Conor has a big profile, especially in the UK. I think Conor\u2019s profile is a bit bigger than his ability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Conor Benn is a bad fighter, but I don\u2019t think he\u2019s a world-class fighter either.<\/p>\n

\u201cConor vs Shakur is probably not competitive at all, but does it sell? I gotta tell you, a lot of stuff that\u2019s not competitive sells these days.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless of the weight, I think Shakur\u2019s so many levels above him that they could do it in any weight they want to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevenson has insisted that, in order for their transatlantic dustup to happen, Benn must agree to a rehydration clause, similar to that of Eubank, that would prevent him from exceeding a certain weight on the morning of the fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world champion Paulie Malignaggi has offered his honest thoughts on a potential welterweight clash between Shakur Stevenson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-427438","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\/427438","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=427438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}