Stephen Espinoza Says Tank-Shakur Talks Died After One Call
Stephen Espinoza says a Gervonta Davis fight against Shakur Stevenson never got past a first call to Top Rank. On The Ring show Ring Champs with AK and Barak, the former Premier Boxing Champions executive said Davis and PBC were willing, and the other side went quiet.
“There was some outreach,” Espinoza said. “The conversation didn’t go very far, to be completely honest.” He described the exchange as a call to Top Rank asking whether there was something the two sides could do. “Yeah, let me think about it. I’ll get back to you. Crickets.”
That is the whole negotiation, as he told it. No purse split, no date, no venue, and no second conversation. “I’m not going to blame Shakur for that,” he said. “I don’t know that he knew anything about it, whatsoever.” Asked if he was saying Stevenson did not want the fight, the reply on the set was, “No, not at all. Not at all.”
Espinoza also refused the other easy story, that Davis was the one who would not sign. “I wouldn’t have made those phone calls unless PBC and Tank were on board,” he said. “Yeah, they were on board with doing it. I’m not going to go chasing something that has no basis for getting made.” He added that he could not be blamed “for fights that Tank did or didn’t get at the end of it.”
The timing matters because the fight was the one fans treated as inevitable while both men were still unbeaten American titleholders in the same pocket of the sport. Davis was the PBC star with the knockout record. Stevenson was the Top Rank champion with the amateur medal and the defensive reputation. Espinoza’s account puts the stall on a promotional phone call, not on a fighter turning an offer down in public.
Stevenson is no longer in that Top Rank seat. He signed with Zuffa Boxing in July, after a wide unanimous decision over Teofimo Lopez on January 31 that made him a four-division champion and added The Ring and WBO belts at 140 pounds.
He entered that deal at 25-0 with 11 knockouts. Dana White called the signing a massive one for the new promotion. Stevenson has not fought since Lopez, a December 11 date against Manny Pacquiao fell off the Anthony Joshua-Tyson Fury card, and he is now in unification talks with WBA champion Gary Antuanne Russell.
Davis has been out longer. He has not fought since a March 2025 draw with Lamont Roach, he was later stripped of the WBA lightweight title, and reports have him targeting a return in early 2027. A Stevenson-Davis fight would now require Zuffa and whatever camp Davis uses next, not the PBC-Top Rank call Espinoza described.
That is the useful limit of the interview. Espinoza said the attempt existed, that his fighter and his company were in, and that Top Rank did not come back. He did not say Stevenson refused, and he did not say a contract was ever on the table. The crickets line is his description of one unanswered follow-up.
Whether that call can be restarted is a different promotion’s problem. Stevenson is looking for a 140-pound unification. Davis is looking for a date after nearly two years away. The fight Espinoza says he tried to make is still the one both names get asked about, and it is still the one nobody has a contract for.
