The victory earned four-weight world champion Stevenson, The Ring and WBO junior welterweight titles and firmly established the 28-year-old from New Jersey as one of the very best fighters on the planet. He recently advanced to number three on The Ring's latest pound-for-pound list.

Immediately after the fight, Stevenson called Britain's Conor Benn into the ring and held some informal but very public talks about a welterweight fight. A potential clash against WBO titleholder and The Ring's No. 1-rated welterweight Devin Haney has also been mentioned since then.

Former two-weight world champion Andre Ward has been a close personal and professional confidant to Stevenson over the years.

So far, Ward has seen his protege handle every step up in weight easily but is preaching caution ahead of a welterweight move.

"If I'm helping him negotiate that, we've got to figure out something because if he's confident going to 47, cool, but he's not the biggest 140," the Hall-of-Famer said during an appearance on talkSPORT Boxing.

"So I'm not sure that I would go up to 47 unless I really felt like that's something that, "Hey, I want to do.""

Benn's long-running feud with Chris Eubank Jnr. has turned him into a major British attraction and they were in New York, jointly accepting The Ring's Fight of the Year award for the thrilling 12-round middleweight war they produced last April.

Benn is now focused on returning to the welterweight division and although has eyes on fighting the winner between Mario Barrios and Ryan Garcia come February 21, he and Stevenson have been goading each other about a future fight for sometime.

Stevenson's next move will be interesting but Benn’s popularity makes the fight attractive financially and the Briton's natural size advantage and fearless, all-action approach do add an element of intrigue to a potential match-up.

"I think it could be fun. It's a fun fight," Ward said.

"You know, it's going to be a fun buildup. I think that Conor Benn is dangerous. He's very strong. You know what he's going to bring to the table, you know how he's coming and that's straight ahead.

"He's going to step on the gas as long and as hard as he can so I think from that standpoint - and Shakur being the smaller fighter - that's going to make for an interesting matchup but I think ultimately, skills and I.Q, ability and ring smarts are going to win out again. I think it's going to net out with Shakur Stevenson being the dominant fighter at the end of the day."