In the strongest terms possible, Shakur Stevenson and his representatives are ready to fully launch negotiations with fellow unbeaten three-division champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis for a lightweight unification bout.
Now, it’s just a matter of making those terms make sense.
“It’s all up to ‘Tank.’ The one thing about Shakur – he will take anyone you put in front of him,” Stevenson’s co-manager, Josh Dubin, told BoxingScene Tuesday. “We’re here and waiting and ready to negotiate.”
Through last week, Baltimore’s World Boxing Association champion Davis (30-0, 28 KOs) was in talks to stage a unification against IBF champion Vasiliy Lomachenko of Ukraine.
However, Lomachenko arrived in the U.S. and told his representatives he’d prefer to stand down and return to fight in the first quarter of 2025, according to Lomachenko promoter, Top Rank Chairman Bob Arum.
With Davis, 29, coming off an eighth-round knockout of Frank Martin June 15, his alternate plans for a high-profile lightweight fall bout seem to be down to the 27-year-old Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) or No. 1 contender William Zepeda.
Facilitating his case, Stevenson is now operating as a free agent following his July 6 unanimous-decision triumph over Artem Harutyunyan that marked the expiration of his contract with Top Rank.
Officials at Davis’ promoter Premier Boxing Champions did not immediately return messages left by BoxingScene this week asking about Davis’ next move.
One source told BoxingScene that there has been a preliminary discussion between Davis and Stevenson’s representatives. Dubin declined to comment on that subject.
“We’ll know how realistic (Davis and PBC’s interest) is by how financially viable they make it for Shakur,” Dubin said. “They know Shakur produced the highest-rated ESPN card of the year (July 6), so they need to come correct.”
Dubin said he and Stevenson co-manager James Prince “have our phone lines open, ready for a call, and they have our numbers.
“It’s a fight Shakur really wants. He’s been begging for it for a long time. What Shakur wants to do – let me say it plainly – is to unify at 135. The logical fights to make that happen are to fight the champions.”
Stevenson criticized Arum and Lomachenko for keeping that bout off limits while Stevenson was with the promotion.
“(Lomachenko) obviously knows the outcome, and he walked away,” Dubin said.
Additionally, Dubin said Stevenson’s team asked for a unification attempt at new WBO lightweight champion Denys Berinchyk.
“We couldn’t get a straight answer – and that was when Shakur was still under contract,” Dubin said. “We asked for that fight and they wanted to talk about a long-term contract.
“Shakur’s own enemy is his own greatness, and other peoples’ fear of him. But he has total trust in James and I and he’s also patient.”
Ideally, his patience is rewarded with the Davis fight – a bout that would match two unbeaten three-division champions in their primes and two highly-popular social-media figures.
Davis has shown that he can generate more than one million pay-per-view buys when he’s teamed with a popular opponent, as he was with Ryan Garcia (1.2 million buys) last year.
For Stevenson, the bout against one of the sport’s most potent knockout artists would be an opportunity to dispel the criticism over the inactivity of his evasive, defensive-minded style that has left audiences and critics panning his past two bouts.
A similar opportunity seemed possible against the destructive Zepeda (31-0, 27 KOs), but Zepeda promoter Oscar De La Hoya says he won’t permit Zepeda to fight Stevenson unless the Newark, N.J., product and 2016 U.S. Olympic silver medalist signs with De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.
“Why would (De La Hoya) penalize his own fighter? You don’t issue edicts like that at the expense of your own fighter,” Dubin said.
That moves Stevenson straight toward Davis, an irresistible showdown seemingly there for the taking.
“The phone lines are open,” Dubin said.
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