Shakur Stevenson doesn’t have to be a professional matchmaker to know that a potential fight between him and current lightweight titleholder Vasiliy Lomachenko, somewhere down boxing's typically long convoluted line, makes all the sense in the world.
That, of course, will depend on whether the Ukrainian gets past fellow titleholder Teofimo Lopez (15-0, 12 KOs) in their lightweight unification bout on Oct. 17 and if he would have any desire dropping back down to 130-pounds, the division in which Stevenson currently competes.
“I just think that Lomachenko ain’t getting no bigger,” Stevenson told FightHype.com. “I feel like the young gun Teofimo is going in and testing the water first. And then if Lomachenko gets the job done, I just feel like, if I’m being honest, you gotta see me.”
“I’m a whole different animal, “Stevenson added. “By the time we fight, I’m 23 now, by the time he gets passed (Lopez), that should be the next (fight). In the next three, maybe four fights, maybe me and Lomachenko should get in the ring (with me). That’s just how I feel.”
Stevenson (14-0, 8 KOs) recently vacated his WBO featherweight title – which he earned by defeating Joet Gonzalez last October in a vacant title bout – to step up to the junior lightweight division. He made his debut at the new weight in June, stopping Felix Caraballo in six rounds.
In addition to size, Stevenson also feels the fact that he and Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs) share the same promoter in Top Rank makes a potential fight all the more feasible.
“Lomachenko is not a real 135 pounder,” Stevenson said. “He can stay and see if he can make some fights with other people outside the (Top Rank) stable but if you want to keep in inside the stable, I feel like I’m the best person.”
Stevenson thinks the world of Lomachenko, calling him a “machine,” someone against whom you need to be prepared to “go through hell”…but the Newark, New Jersey native would be lying if he didn’t think he believe he has all the tools to defeat him.
“We sparred (in the past), and I got nothing but respect for Lomachenko – I think he’s a hell of a fighter,” the southpaw Stevenson said. “But I feel like I have the perfect style to defeat Lomachenko. That’s how I feel about myself.
“We’ve both got that Olympic pedigree. We both have good legs, good movement, but the problem with that fight is that the best part of Lomachenko is his legs and I feel like my legs can already match his legs. I just think that stylistically if you put me in the ring with Lomachenko, I think I’ll pick him apart. I can move when you move. At the same time that you want to move. I’m tough and I don’t have no quit in me…I have zero quit in me and I’m just as confident as he is.
“I look as that fight as what Lomachenko and (Guillermo) Rigondeaux should have been.”
The ballyhooed Lomachenko-Rigondeaux bout in 2017 turned out to be a largely uncompetitive affair that saw the Ukrainian flummox the Cuban for six rounds until the Cuban retired on his stool, citing a hand injury.
Despite his own personal ambitions to face perhaps the greatest current talent south of the 140-pound division, Stevenson is rooting for stablemate Lopez to come out victorious on Oct. 17.
“I want Teofimo to win, like I want him to win,” Stevenson said. "I’m with him, but at the end of the day, he’s still fighting Lomachenko.
“He’s got a puncher’s chance, but as the later rounds go on it’s going to be hard for him to get through Lomachenko with all that experience that he’s got.”
Asked to commit to a prediction for that contest, Stevenson, with a grin on his face, hedged his response.
“I’m picking Lomachenko by decision and Teofimo by KO,” he said.
Sean Nam lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York. You can follow him on Twitter at @seanpasbon.
