Shakur Stevenson believes that he has gleaned sufficient details about Teofimo Lopez to use his ‘errors’ on January 31.
The pair will sq. off for Lopez’s WBO super-lightweight title at Madison Sq. Backyard, New York, in arguably essentially the most intriguing struggle that has been introduced for 2026 up to now.
Getting into their contest as a slight favorite, Stevenson – an unbeaten southpaw who at the moment holds the WBC light-weight strap – is now bidding to turn out to be a four-division world champion.
It’s maybe unsurprising, too, that many are selecting him to dethrone Lopez, particularly when contemplating his final efficiency, towards William Zepeda, in July.
Again then, Stevenson produced a flexible show, typically switching his strategy from aggressive to calculated, to convincingly outpoint his relentless opponent.
Together with that, the 28-year-old’s consistency at world stage has impressed many to view him as a safer guess to Lopez – an ultra-talented, however largely unpredictable, champion.
A bent to blow cold and hot has maybe eliminated a level of lustre from ‘The Takeover’, although victories over Vasyl Lomachenko and Josh Taylor have equally confirmed that he’s able to extraordinary issues.
Both method, Stevenson, who has beforehand shared just a few rounds of sparring with Lopez, believes that his superior skillset can pay dividends later this month.
Talking with ALL THE SMOKE FIGHT, the Newark man insisted that, no matter any sparring tales, there exists no world by which Lopez will get the higher of him.
“We sparred like three rounds. It was cool; [there] wasn’t actually an excessive amount of to gauge. We received in there, I felt like I received off, he most likely really feel like he did one thing.
“From my reminiscence, I really feel like he can’t beat me. He does a whole lot of issues nicely – I believe he’s flashy – nevertheless it’s just a few fundamental stuff the place I really feel like he makes errors, and I believe I’m going to capitalise on these errors.”
Lopez has beforehand gone on report to say that, as their sparring session progressed, he started to search out success towards the close to unsolvable puzzle of Stevenson’s fashion.
