Like Stevenson, a southpaw, Lomachenko was a favored three-division champion when he opposed Lopez in October 2020. The highly skilled Ukrainian was toward the top of pound-for-pound lists as well, yet Stevenson considers himself more in his physical prime than Lomachenko, 32 when he lost by unanimous decision.

Stevenson, No. 7 on The Ring’s pound-for-pound list, is 28, the same age as Lopez, who was nine years younger than Lomachenko.

“I’m on top of my game,” Stevenson told The Ring. “He’s getting the best version of me. … I’m not as small as Lomachenko was. [Lopez] may be the bigger fighter, but he’s not just way bigger than me. I think with the Lomachenko fight, he was a lot bigger than Lomachenko and he instilled and his dad instilled fear inside of Lomachenko by constantly calling his name.

“And I seen it within the way Lomachenko fought. And I don’t have that. I’m the type of guy that I take risks. I’m not scared of these moments. I’m not scared of this fight. I’m not scared of none of this. I prepared myself to my whole capacity and I know that come fight night what I did in my preparation is gonna show up.”

Stevenson (24-0, 11 KOs), who owns the WBC lightweight title, will make his junior welterweight debut against Lopez (22-1, 13 KOs), who is 6-0 at the 140-pound limit. His victory over Lomachenko is the crowning accomplishment of his lightweight run, an achievement Stevenson views as underappreciated.

“He should've been undisputed for [beating] Lomachenko,” Stevenson said. “And he didn’t get his credit where it was deserved for [beating] Lomachenko. And I think now that’s why he feels the way he feels, and the way he kinda acts crazy. And I think he wants the attention he feel like he deserve.”

Lopez retained his IBF belt and won The Ring, WBA, WBC “franchise” and WBO championships from Lomachenko. Devin Haney was elevated from interim champ to full champ by the WBC before Lopez beat Lomachenko, however, which caused widespread debate about whether he was the fully unified champ.

The Brooklyn-born Lopez defeated Lomachenko (then 14-1) by big margins on the cards of judges Julie Lederman (119-109) and Steve Weisfeld (117-111). Judge Tim Cheatham, who scored it 116-112, gave Lomachenko additional credit for the more competitive nature of the second half of their bout.

“I don’t know why [Lopez] didn’t get the credit,” Stevenson said. “I think it’s based off of fans, media and all of that kinda stuff. But my recollection from the fight, I felt like he fought a solid fight. I think a lot of people give him more credit than he deserves for it because the scorecards [were] a lot wider than what the actual fight was.

“He fought good, but Lomachenko kinda beat himself by not fighting for six rounds. And when he realized that Teo wasn’t as good as he made him to believe in his brain, is when he started to fight. And when he did that, he started to win the moments.”

Stevenson, a 2016 Olympic silver medalist from Newark, New Jersey, doesn’t think the pre-existing shoulder injury Lomachenko disclosed after he lost to Lopez was too impactful in the future Hall-of-Famer’s defeat.

“Only reason why I don’t think it was that big of a factor,” Stevenson said, “[is] because if you watch my fight with [Edwin] De Los Santos, and you pay attention when I was hurt, I wasn’t throwing my [left] hand at all. I was only throwing one hand. When you watch [the Lomachenko-Lopez] fight, it’s like he didn’t throw for six rounds, but then he started to throw six rounds later.

“I think that he kind of believed into the hype, and maybe he believed into the hype because Teo was knocking guys out at that point in time. He believed into the hype and didn’t realize that he probably was the better fighter. And he realized too late.”