Shakur Stevenson is willing to take a big next step by fighting William Zepeda! However, it comes with a caveat—Gervonta Davis will have to finalize his fight against Vasyl Lomachenko. The Newark native is coming off a somewhat slow unanimous decision win over Artem Harutyunyan last weekend, a fight he received quite the criticism for.

Despite the win, Stevenson failed to impress the fan base by stopping Harutyunyan. So, he seems to be at a point in his career where he has to beat some big names to maintain his elite status. While appearing in an interview with Cigar Talk’s Naji, Stevenson laid out his plan to take on Zepeda, the No.1 ranked lightweight fighter across all four sanctioning bodies, on his next step inside the ring.

Shakur Stevenson alleges Vasyl Lomachenko is an easier fight than William Zepeda

As Naji speculated what would be the next step for Stevenson in his career, the Newark defense expert jumped in with, “Where is William Zepeda?” Stevenson questioned how long will Zepeda keep fighting opponents that aren’t on his level, declaring himself to be levels above them all. Intrigued by this, Naji probed ‘Sugar’ whether that’s the fight he is looking for.

Shakur Stevenson confidently responded, stating, “If Tank [is] going to go fight Lomachenko, why can’t I go fight, maybe the harder fight? We don’t know.” He speculated that because Zepeda boasts more volume in his punches, he could be a much tougher challenge than Lomachenko fighting Gervonta Davis. However, Stevenson isn’t sure the Mexican would want to fight him.

It’s worth mentioning that there has been chatter about Gervonta Davis facing Vasyl Lomachenko late this year. Also, Bob Arum, Lomachenko’s promoter, has indicated that they are diligently trying to make the fight happen. Regardless, when Naji suggested Zepeda was open to the fight but his promoter Oscar De La Hoya might prove to be a hurdle, Stevenson didn’t buy it.

Stevenson said, “That can’t be true though… Him and Oscar [are] close. They [are] close enough where you could go sit down with him, [and ask,] ‘Can we make this fight happen? What I got to do to make this fight happen?’” Instead, Stevenson believes that William Zepeda and his team are looking for a title fight they can easily win. However, this is not the first instance when a potential fight between Shakur Stevenson and William Zepeda has made headlines.

Stevenson accuses Oscar De La Hoya of using his name to promote his fighter

All the way back in March this year, Stevenson had not found his opponent for the clash last weekend, even though the date was finalized. So, Oscar De La Hoya hopped on X to say, “Shakur, you said nobody wants to fight you. Well, check out William Zepeda on Saturday night on DAZN. He is begging me [that he wants] to fight you.”

After discovering the tweet from Oscar back then, Stevenson was left in stock as he accused Oscar of using his name to promote Zepeda. Stevenson wrote, “Yooo @OscarDeLaHoya, I still haven’t heard anything yet about Zepeda fighting me on July 6. How can you say my name over and over and not make the fight happen next? Were you using me to promote your fighter fight or?”

Oscar later responded with, “Zepeda is fighting soon for the second time this year, I’ll talk to your promoter third quarter of this year.” However, William Zepeda’s second fight of the year turned out to be against Giovanni Cabrera, that too on the same date as Stevenson’s fight on July 6th.

It appears that Shakur Stevenson is open to all the challenges that are ahead of him, but Oscar De La Hoya still hasn’t made his stance clear and a deal is yet to be inked despite the chatter. So do you think Stevenson vs. Zepeda would happen this year?