{"id":748939,"date":"2026-08-25T05:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748939\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T05:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T05:38:09","slug":"im-going-to-beat-him-undefeated-world-champion-says-he-is-the-man-to-defeat-shakur-stevenson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748939\/","title":{"rendered":"“I’m going to beat him”: Undefeated world champion says he is the man to defeat Shakur Stevenson"},"content":{"rendered":"

A world champion has expressed his \u201cbig belief\u201d in defeating Shakur Stevenson<\/a>, who is still yet to announce an opponent for his Zuffa Boxing debut.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old inked a multi-fight deal with Dana White\u2019s promotional outfit<\/a> earlier this year, coming off a unanimous decision victory over Teofimo Lopez in January.<\/p>\n

It was arguably a career-best performance, in fact, that saw Stevenson become a four-division world champion and cement himself as one of boxing\u2019s pound-for-pound stars.<\/p>\n

Since announcing his landmark promotional deal, though, the American has seemingly progressed no closer to securing an opponent for later this year.<\/p>\n

One would suspect that he is planning on fighting once more in 2026, yet there has been no mention of a date or location for his next outing.<\/p>\n

In terms of an opponent for 2027, however, the WBO super-lightweight champion could be tempted by a unification match with WBC counterpart Dalton Smith.<\/p>\n

The Sheffield man claimed his world title with a fifth-round finish over Subriel Matias<\/a> in January, but must now make a mandatory defence against former champion Alberto Puello.<\/p>\n

Should he emerge victorious on October 24, then Smith has told talkSPORT<\/a> that he would be eager to face Stevenson next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll respect to Shakur. I\u2019ve known him [since] the amateurs \u2026 He\u2019s always praised me, always given me respect, and I\u2019ll always do that for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one hell of a fighter but, if we can get a fight made, of course I\u2019m grabbing it with both hands. I\u2019ve got the big belief that I\u2019m going to beat him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a fight, for me, that rolls back the Ricky Hatton-[Floyd] Mayweather days. You want that big American name so, for me, getting that over here [the UK] or in [Las] Vegas would be a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Stevenson still holds the WBO title, it remains to be seen whether he will defend the belt or even continue to campaign at 140lbs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A world champion has expressed his \u201cbig belief\u201d in defeating Shakur Stevenson, who is still yet to announce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-748939","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\/748939","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=748939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}