During the aftermath of his victory on Saturday, Shakur Stevenson demanded a showdown with Conor Benn. Now, Carl Froch has weighed in on how he believes the potential scrap would play out.
Stevenson delivered a masterful performance to decision Teofimo Lopez by a significant margin at Madison Square Garden and claim the WBO super-lightweight world title, becoming a four-division world champion in the process.
Yet, despite an expectation that the Newark southpaw will now return to lightweight to defend his WBC 135lb crown, the 28-year-old then called out British welterweight Conor Benn, who is eyeing up belts in the 147lb division.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, four-time super-middleweight ruler Carl Froch dismissed Benn’s chances in the contest.
“Nobody is giving Conor Benn a chance, at all, and you can see why.
“Conor Benn is still learning on the job, he has never fought for an English, British, Commonwealth or European title, he has never fought for a world title.
“He got a good win against Chris Algieri, he has had them two mega fights with Chris Eubank Jr. but he is not ready for them kind of opponents, in my opinion.”
However, ‘The Cobra’ then went on to explain that he does believe Benn to be capable of claiming world honours, once he has a couple more world-level bouts under his belt.
“Conor needs a couple of steady fights around world level before he challenges for a world title and I like him against someone like Ryan Garcia in a couple of fights, or maybe [Mario] Barrios, I think that that they are winnable fights.”
Barrios and Garcia fight one another in just over two weeks’ time with the WBC world title at stake and Benn has admitted that he is planning to take on the victor, or possibly WBA titleholder Rolando Romero, in his next fight, though he is not shying away from Stevenson’s challenge.
