Ryan Garcia didn’t waste any time after his latest win.
Fresh off a dominant performance over Mario Barrios in Las Vegas — where he dropped him within the opening seconds and controlled the fight the rest of the way — Garcia used his post-fight moment to call his next shot.
“You know who I want,” Garcia said to Ring Magazine. “He’s right there. Shakur Stevenson, let’s go. Let’s run that sh*t.”
Garcia, who captured the WBC welterweight title with the win, made it clear he’s not looking for safe defenses or easy paydays.
“I want to be a great champion, and I’m not scared of sh*t,” he said. “I fought Devin Haney, I’ll fight Shakur Stevenson… let’s f**king go!”
The callout comes at a moment when Stevenson’s name is hotter than ever.
Earlier this month, Stevenson stepped into Madison Square Garden and turned a high-stakes matchup against Teófimo López into a one-sided showcase. Fighting at 140 pounds, Stevenson controlled the pace from the opening bell, working behind a sharp jab and picking López apart with clean counters.
The numbers backed it up. Stevenson outlanded López 165 to 72 and connected at nearly three times the efficiency. All three judges scored it 119-109.
“I picked him apart and did what I was supposed to do,” Stevenson said after the fight. “This is the art of boxing — hit and don’t get hit and pick guys apart.”
The win made Stevenson a four-division champion and extended his unbeaten record to 25-0. It also reinforced what critics and supporters have debated for years — whether his technical style is too clean for opponents to deal with at the highest level.
But while Stevenson added a belt in one division, he lost one in another.
Days after the victory, the World Boxing Council announced it had stripped Stevenson of his lightweight title, citing its rules after he moved up in weight. Stevenson pushed back immediately, claiming the decision was tied to a $100,000 sanctioning fee he refused to pay.
“100k to some crooks who don’t deserve it?” Stevenson wrote.
He followed that with: “The WBC didn’t even have sh*t to do with this fight… Take your belt, it don’t make me.”