{"id":580986,"date":"2026-05-13T03:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/580986\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T03:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:22:10","slug":"shakur-stevenson-names-who-he-wants-to-see-benavidez-face-next-its-the-best-fight-in-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/580986\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson names who he wants to see Benavidez face next: &#8220;It&#8217;s the best fight in boxing&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/shakur-stevenson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shakur Stevenson<\/a> has urged <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/david-benavidez\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Benavidez<\/a> to chase the \u201cbest fight in boxing\u201d, rather than defend his WBO and WBA cruiserweight titles.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 became a three-division world champion last week, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/boxing\/news\/12183\/13539605\/david-benavidez-calls-out-canelo-alvarez-after-destroying-gilberto-zurdo-ramirez-to-capture-the-wba-and-wbo-cruiserweight-titles#:~:text=Benavidez%20(32%2D0%2C%2026,Mobile%20Arena%20in%20Las%20Vegas.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">dethroning Gilberto Ramirez with a punishing sixth-round stoppage<\/a> in his first outing at 200lbs.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, Benavidez has placed himself in the conversation for a showdown with former world cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia, or possibly even Oleksandr Usyk.<\/p>\n<p>Jumping up to heavyweight, or even remaining at 200lbs, would certainly be a bold move, especially given that Benavidez admitted to only weighing 202lbs on the night of his triumph over Ramirez.<\/p>\n<p>Based on this information, four-weight world champion Stevenson has said he would much rather see the 29-year-old drop back down to 175lbs.<\/p>\n<p>He does, after all, hold the WBC light-heavyweight title, which he gained after Dmitry Bivol vacated the belt following his undisputed victory over Artur Beterbiev in February 2025.<\/p>\n<p>This was because the Russian chose to undergo back surgery, rather than face his then-mandatory challenger, with Benavidez ultimately being elevated from \u2018interim\u2019 to full world champion.<\/p>\n<p>But now that Bivol is gearing up to face mandatory challenger Michael Eifert on May 30, perhaps he will soon wish to become a two-time undisputed king.<\/p>\n<p>For Stevenson, this represents the best-case scenario as he tells <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/wIetecnKQhA?si=uToh6D0oJlSZ-F3i\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Agnew Podcast<\/a> that he hopes to see Benavidez compete at his more natural weight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think I want to see him fight at the 200lb weight class. I would rather see him fight [at 175lbs against] Bivol [or] Beterbiev.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think [Bivol-Benavidez is] the best fight in boxing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While noise of a potential Usyk fight appears to be growing louder, it is worth highlighting that <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/dmitry-bivol-talks-for-undisputed-fight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Benavidez and Bivol have already initiated preliminary talks<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson has urged David Benavidez to chase the \u201cbest fight in boxing\u201d, rather than defend his WBO&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-580986","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\/580986","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=580986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}