Representatives connected to the talks to stage a Teofimo Lopez-Shakur Stevenson showdown in early 2026 are bullish on the progress for a bout being pointed for New York.
The meeting between Brooklyn’s two-division champion Lopez 22-1 (13 KOs) and Newark, New Jersey’s three-division champion Stevenson 24-0 (11 KOs) is currently being planned as a Premier Boxing Champions card that would receive the financial support of Saudi Arabia boxing financier Turki Alalshikh, two sources who’ve been briefed on the talks told BoxingScene.
WBO 140lbs champion Lopez and WBC lightweight champion Stevenson, both 28, spoke of their mutual excitement for the bout while attending last week’s Terence Crawford-Canelo Alvarez fight in Las Vegas.
The bout would be for Lopez’s WBO 140lbs championship.
Lopez told BoxingScene he expected more details on the negotiations to be forthcoming “soon.”
Stevenson would pursue a fourth division belt in meeting his former Top Rank stablemate. He publicly expressed interest in the fight in the aftermath of close friend Terence “Bud” Crawford’s historic triumph over undisputed168lbs champion Saul “Canelo” on Saturday at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Lopez and Stevenson are now promotional free agents, with Lopez interested in fighting under the PBC banner.
PBC is pressing to stage a steady delivery of pay-per-view cards.
In October, powerful manager Al Haymon’s company will distribute a card headlined by the WBC 154lbs title defense of Sebastian Fundora versus veteran former unified welterweight champion Keith Thurman on Prime Video and PPV.COM.
Manny Pacquiao may return for a December PBC pay-per-view with WBA welterweight champion Rolly Romero considered the front-runner for that fight.
Opening 2026 with a pay-per-view headlined by two of America’s top champions at their peak would be a boon for PBC.
While Alalshikh is funding the new TKO boxing promotion that staged Crawford-Alvarez Saturday with plans for lower-level fights and some more major cards in 2026, the Saudi financier has previously backed cards featuring Stevenson and Lopez.
Stevenson is coming off an impressive July dismissal of former top-ranked contender William Zepeda in Queens, New York. The event came more than two months after Lopez successfully defended his WBO 140lbs belt by cruising to a unanimous-decision triumph over Arnold Barboza Jnr on May 2 in Times Square.
Given PBC’s usual placement of New York fights at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, that venue is seen as the favorite to land the bout. Stevenson’s camp may express a preference for Madison Square Garden to take the bout out of Lopez’s hometown.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
