Shakur Stevenson has offered a somewhat surprising selection for the most underrated fighter of all time.
Stevenson has claimed world honours at featherweight, super-featherweight, lightweight and now super-lightweight, becoming boxing’s third-youngest four-division world champion.
Stevenson is coming off perhaps the best win of his career, having dominated and outclassed Teofimo Lopez to capture the WBO and Ring super lightweight titles. Since then, he has signed a promotional deal with Zuffa Boxing and has been strongly linked with a fight against Devin Haney.
Speaking on the ‘Ball in the Family’ podcast, Stevenson was asked to name the most underrated boxer of all time. His choice was Vasiliy Lomachenko, a fighter who lost to both Lopez and Haney.
“Probably Lomachenko [is the most underrated boxer of all time].
“I think that Lomachenko is underrated because I feel like he fought outside of his weight-class. He fought at 135, where he is really like a 126lber but people discredit him because he lost the big fights against a lot of bigger fighters, so he didn’t really get a chance to fight at his weight-class.
“He should be fighting against guys like [Naoya] Inoue, not Teofimo [Lopez] and Devin [Haney] and s**t, so he is underrated to me.”
Lomachenko is one of the greatest amateur boxers in history, putting together a 396-1 record which led to him entering the paid ranks and becoming a three-division world champion, before the aforementioned losses to Lopez and Haney.
Both Lopez and Haney have since gone on to become welterweight world champions, whilst Lomachenko is planning to announce his comeback imminently, and is reportedly targeting a super-featherweight return against Charly Suarez and then a potential challenge against Emanuel Navarrete.
