Boxing lightweight stars Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta Davis have two different accounts of how their past sparring sessions transpired.
A lightweight boxing clash between stars Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta Davis has been discussed for years. While fight talks haven’t materialized during their careers, there’s an intriguing backstory behind their brewing rivalry that would add to pre-fight buildup.
Stevenson, 22-0, will face Floyd Schofield on February 22nd in Riyadh. He returns to the ring after outpointing Artem Harutyunyan in his first WBC lightweight title defense last July.
Davis is also nearing a return to the ring as he’s set to face Lamont Roach Jr. on March 1st in Brooklyn. He’s hinted that this could potentially be the final boxing match of his storied career after amassing a 30-0 professional record.
While Stevenson and Davis haven’t met in the ring during their lightweight runs, they trained together briefly earlier in their careers. According to Davis, he ‘rocked’ Stevenson in sparring and had him ‘running away’ during their session.
It didn’t take long for Stevenson to respond to Davis’s claims; and if his comments are any indication of what’s to come, a super fight isn’t off the table.
Shakur Stevenson hits back at Gervonta Davis’s sparring claims
In a recent interview with talkSPORT, Stevenson shared his side of his past spars with his potential future opponent.
“He’s lying, he never in his life hurt me. I’ve got a hell of a chin. The sparring sessions were good sparring sessions, after the last spar we had he came up to me and said ‘Bro, you have got so much better. Bro you are so good,'” Stevenson claimed.
“You can go back and look at clips of how he used to talk about me and then he changed. I’m not lying. He’s a hell of a fighter, I have got nothing to take away from him. But I’m a hell of a fighter myself and it was good work every time.” (h/t talkSPORT)
In a year headlined by upcoming boxing mega-fights, a matchup between Stevenson and Davis could be on the horizon.
Gervonta Davis vs. Shakur Stevenson talks ramp up amidst sparring allegations
Stevenson has defeated some impressive names during his career, but a win over an opponent of Davis’s caliber would put him into the all-time great conversation. Before defeating Harutyunyan in his last fight, he earned impressive victories against the likes of Oscar Valdez and Edwin De Los Santos.
Davis enters his clash with Roach off of recent wins over Frank Martin, Ryan Garcia, and Rolando Romero. The Floyd Mayweather protege has cemented himself as arguably one of the greatest lightweight boxers of all time.
Being a fly on the wall as Davis and Stevenson battled it out in sparring would’ve been a treat, but for now, all we have to go on is their accounts of how things played out. After their upcoming fights, they could potentially transition into making a boxing fan’s dream fight come to fruition.