Steve Claggett, who has previously faced Teofimo Lopez in the ring, has offered his analysis of Lopez’s recent performance against the highly skilled Shakur Stevenson. Stevenson secured Lopez’s WBO super lightweight title in a dominant fashion, marking him as the third youngest boxer in history to achieve championship status in four different weight divisions.
Claggett, a Canadian fighter preparing to face Adam Azim on May 30th, was acknowledged by Azim as a tough and experienced competitor, with Azim previously stating that Claggett gave Teofimo Lopez his most challenging fight. Drawing from his personal experience, Claggett commented on Lopez’s strategy against Stevenson.
“Well, I think that’s exactly right because he was trying to outbox a master boxer,” Claggett stated, as quoted by Bowks Talking Bouts. “It’s a tough one to go against because he’s counter punching a counter puncher. It’s like stylistically you’ve got to try and make the guy fight your fight. Then when you fight his fight, it’s going to be a tricky one especially when he’s a master boxer like Shakur is. So, I feel like the name of the game is make the other guy fight how you want to fight and fight your fight.”
“As long as you can control the action and as long as you can make it your fight, then you can control the fight. So, it’s a matter of taking the chess board and making it yours. That’s pretty much the name of the game.”
Teofimo Lopez’s Perspective on Beating Shakur Stevenson
Despite the decisive loss, Teofimo Lopez remains confident that he understands how to achieve a different outcome in a potential rematch with Shakur Stevenson. In an interview with Boxing Highs, Lopez shared his thoughts on the initial fight and what a fighter needs to do to succeed against Stevenson.
“It is not Shakur’s so-called fault, but in the fight he was stepping on my foot and elbowing me in-between those moments when we were clinching, but that is just what it was,” Lopez said, according to Boxing News Online. “He knows how to do one thing and one thing for sure. That is to create enough space to be where he needs to be at defensively. That, I can give him, he is very defensively sound. You have just got to make it a dirty fight, for anybody that wants to face him, you have just got to make it real dirty.”
