Ilia Topuria challenges Shakur Stevenson with latest boxing callout
Ilia Topuria has, once again, taken aim at a star boxer. This time, however, it's Shakur Stevenson, who 'El Matador'
Ilia Topuria took part in a recent interview on DeepCut with VicBlends. The pair covered numerous topics, and inevitably touched on the sport of boxing, with Shakur Stevenson, who is the current WBO light welterweight champion and one of boxing's most technically gifted fighters, being singled out as the fighter Topuria wants to face the most.
Ilia Topuria believes he can face boxing's best
In the haircut segment of the interview, Ilia Topuria and VicBlends, whose real name is Victor Fontanez, discussed their favorite boxers. The reigning UFC lightweight champion highlighted Julio César Chávez, Canelo Álvarez, Vasiliy Lomachenko, Mike Tyson, and Oleksandr Usyk as his favorite boxers. However, when VicBlends named Shakur Stevenson as a boxer he enjoys watching, Topuria said the following (15:58):
"He's a good fighter. The only bad thing about him, he talks too much. He has some hate to me. Honestly, I really feel that I can go to boxing and really face the best fighters in the world. Currently, it's not a dream, but if it happens, I will be happy. And specifically, if it's against someone like Shakur Stevenson, someone like him, who talks too much, it would be great."
The animosity between the pair stems from Topuria's previous assertion that he could beat Terence Crawford in a boxing match. Not only is Crawford one of the greatest boxers of all time and a former multi-division world champion, who retired at 42-0, but he is also a close friend and mentor to Stevenson, who took issue with Topuria challenging Crawford. However, Crawford and Stevenson aren't the only boxers who Topuria has called out, as 'El Matador' recently got into a social media spat with Ryan Garcia, claiming that he could beat him in a boxing match as well.
Unfortunately for Topuria, unless he is either released from his UFC contract or persuades the promotion, perhaps through Zuffa Boxing, to greenlight a boxing match, he'll exclusively remain an MMA fighter for the foreseeable future. He is currently scheduled to headline UFC Freedom 250, where he will both defend his lightweight title and look to improve his 17-0 record against a determined Justin Gaethje, the division's interim champion.
