Shakur Stevenson is hell-bent on putting on a show against Artem Harutyunyan this weekend in his hometown of Newark, New Jersey.
But Stevenson sees this fight as a checkpoint on a collision course toward an eventual mega bout with Gervonta "Tank" Davis. Such a clash would pit two undefeated fighters and lightweight world champions against each other as Davis (30-0, 28 KOs) owns the WBA title and Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs) holds the WBC.
The more Stevenson thinks about the dream fight, the more he believes that "Tank" can do for his career what Errol Spence Jr. did for Terence Crawford's. Spence and Crawford had long been engaged in trash talk and stalled negotiations until they finally fought last July with Crawford producing a scintillating ninth-round TKO, proving his greatness to naysayers.
Stevenson believes a shot against "Tank" can elevate his own star profile and cement his boxing legacy.
"I definitely want to go down as one of the greats and I want to be in everyone's Top 5 for sure — Top 3, Top 5," Stevenson recently said on an episode of DeepCut with VicBlends . "For example, with like Bud Crawford, like his situation I feel like he's been one of the best, been one of the greatest boxers to do it but he just had the opportunity and needed the opportunity to show it and I think with Errol Spence, he was the right guy to be there to show how great he truly was.
"I think with me all it takes is the right fight and the right person."
And when pressed to offer who that "right person" is, Stevenson didn't hesitate at all.
"'Tank,'" he said. "I think me and 'Tank' is the fight. I think everybody thinks that I can't do it so I love that part about it."
Both Davis and Stevenson have mutually maintained their desire to fight each other.
Live on DAZN: Nate Diaz vs. Jorge Masvidal on July 6. Click here for details.