NEW YORK (AP) — Teofimo Lopez delivered some of his best performances against boxers the experts thought would beat him.
Shakur Stevenson is another one of those fighters. Undefeated and sometimes looking untouchable, the southpaw is the favorite Saturday night when he faces Lopez at Madison Square Garden in a bid to win a title in a fourth weight class.
Lopez (22-1, 13 KOs) has been watching Stevenson (24-0, 11 KOs) for years — both were 2016 Olympians who were early in their careers when they fought as pros at MSG for the first time on the same night in 2017 — and knows his opponent is skilled. But the 140-pound champion also knows what he has done when the odds are against him.
“I believe all of it is a gimmick when it comes to Shakur," Lopez said. "I believe there’s this idea what they want out of Shakur as far as the general public and the boxing community sometimes, and I’ve had many, many analysts that have been boxing or seen boxing for as long as I’ve been born, if not more, and they got it wrong every time. So that’s the part that I love as a fighter, because we get to display and the hands do the rest of the talking.”
Their bout for Lopez's WBO belt tops another quality “Ring Magazine” card that will stream on DAZN. Both fighters come off victories in previous Saudi-backed promotions, with Lopez beating Arnold Barboza last May in Times Square, a couple months before Stevenson beat William Zepeda at Louis Armstrong Stadium at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center to defend his lightweight title.
This event goes back to a traditional boxing venue and organizers say MSG will be sold out for the showdown of local fighters, with Lopez from Brooklyn and Stevenson from Newark, New Jersey.
The fighters traded insults about family members at their press conference Thursday and multiple brawls broke out when they weighed in Friday, with Madison Square Garden warning that anyone fighting at one of its events may be “banned for life.”
Stevenson is listed at -325 at the BetMGM Sportsbook, making him more than a 3-to-1 favorite. But Lopez was the underdog when he beat Vasiliy Lomachenko in a 135-pound title bout in 2020, and again when he knocked off then-unbeaten Josh Taylor to win his 140-pound belt in 2023.
Stevenson, while conceding that Lopez is a good fighter, noted that Lomachenko was small for the lightweight division and Taylor, by the time he fought Lopez, had perhaps outgrown junior welterweight.
“I mean, it’s easy to perform when you’re fighting against a little guy, or the other guy is a guy that’s struggling at the weight class in Josh Taylor,” Stevenson said. “So I’m not worried about that. Those guys aren’t me.”
Stevenson is one of boxing's best defensive fighters, sometimes criticized for making boring fights by being too cautious. He seemed willing to trade more against Zepeda, saying he strayed a bit from the instructions from Terence Crawford, the recently retired great who has been with him in preparation for this fight.
Crawford was the headliner when Lopez and Stevenson fought in undercard bouts at MSG on May 20, 2017. Now they are the main event after Bruce Carrington (16-0, 9 KOs) and Carlos Castro (30-3, 14 KOs) fight for the vacant WBC featherweight championship; and unbeaten Keyshawn Davis (13-0, 9 KOs) faces Jamaine Ortiz (20-2, 10 KOs) in a 140-pound bout.
Lopez edged Ortiz two years ago and acknowledged that he's gotten up for some fighters more than others.
“It would seem that way for sure, you know what I mean? You go off the records, you go off the looks of what the media has out there, the stakes and all that, but I think it’s just me trying to find my footing in all this,” Lopez said.
He believes he took another step toward that by giving up alcohol and marijuana last year as his New Year's resolution, after realizing someone who has asthma and stayed away from smoking as an amateur shouldn't have been doing it as a pro.
So Lopez is feeling better outside the ring and now has the type of fight that has usually brought out his best inside it.
“I believe that Shakur has the skillsets to bring out that version of me for sure and I do believe that Shakur may think, at least in his mind, as far as that goes that he can hang in there with a fighter like myself,” Lopez said. “I think he bit more than he could chew for sure and I can’t wait to display that and show him that when it comes to fight night.”
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FILE - Shakur Stevenson, left, throws a punch at Oscar Valdez during the WBC-WBO junior lightweight title boxing bout Saturday, April 30, 2022, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, file)
FILE - Teofimo Lopez, right, punches Scotland's Josh Taylor during the ninth round of a welterweight title bout, Saturday, June 10, 2023 in New York. Lopez won the fight. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, file)
Many have denied having close ties to the late financier, or at least having anything to do with his alleged sexual abuse of girls and young women that led to his arrest on sex trafficking charges.
None have been charged with a crime connected to the investigation. Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019. Yet some of them maintained friendships with Epstein, or developed them anew, even after he became known as a predator of young girls and registered sex offender.
Here’s a primer on some of the notable names in the Epstein files:
The man formerly known as Britain’s Prince Andrew has long been dogged by questions about his relationship with Epstein, including allegations from the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre that she was trafficked by Epstein and instructed to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor when she was 17.
The former prince has repeatedly denied that it happened, but his brother, King Charles III, still stripped him of his royal titles late last year, including the right to be called a prince and the Duke of York.
Mountbatten-Windsor’s name appears at least several hundred times in Friday’s document release, including in Epstein’s private emails.
Among the correspondence is an invitation for Epstein to dine at Buckingham Palace, Epstein’s offer to introduce Mountbatten-Windsor to a 26-year-old Russian woman, and photos that appear to show Mountbatten-Windsor kneeling over an unidentified woman lying on the floor.
The billionaire Tesla founder turns up at least a few times in Friday’s document release, notably in email exchanges in 2012 and 2013 in which he discussed visiting Epstein’s infamous Caribbean island compound.
But it’s not immediately clear if the island visits took place. Spokespersons for Musk’s companies, Tesla and X, didn’t respond to emails seeking comment Friday or Saturday.
Musk has maintained that he repeatedly turned down the disgraced financier’s overtures. “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED,” he posted on X in 2025.
The New York Giants co-owner is mentioned more than 400 times in the files released Friday. Correspondence between the two shows Epstein offered to connect Tisch to numerous women over the years.
In one 2013 email exchange with the subject line “Ukrainian girl,” Epstein encouraged Tisch to contact a particular woman, whose physical beauty he praised in crude terms.
“Pro or civilian?” Tisch asked in reply.
Tisch, a scion of a powerful New York family that founded the Loews Corporation, has acknowledged knowing Epstein but denied ever going to his infamous Caribbean island.
“We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy and investments,” said Tisch, who also won an Academy Award in 1994 for producing “Forrest Gump.” “As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I deeply regret associating with.”
President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island with his family on at least one occasion, records released Friday show.
That appears to contradict prior statements he’s made claiming he cut ties with the disgraced financier, who he’s called “gross,” decades ago.
But emails show Lutnick and his wife accepted an invitation to Little St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands in December 2012 and planned to arrive by yacht with their children.
The former chairman of Newmark, a major commercial real estate firm, also had drinks on another occasion in 2011 with Epstein and corresponded with him about the construction of a building across the street from both of their homes.
The Commerce Department, in a statement, said Lutnick had “limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing.”
The billionaire Google co-founder made plans to meet with Epstein and his longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell at his townhouse in New York years before he was publicly accused of sexually abusing underage girls, emails show.
In one exchange in 2003, Maxwell invited him to join her at a screening of the Renee Zellweger film “Down with Love” in New York.
She followed up a few weeks later to invite him to a “happily casual and relaxed” dinner at Epstein’s house. Brin offered to bring along Google’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt.
Spokespersons for Google didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Saturday.
The one-time adviser to Trump exchanged hundreds of friendly texts with Epstein, some sent months before his 2019 arrest and jailhouse suicide.
The two discussed politics, travel and a documentary Bannon was said to be planning that would help salvage Epstein’s reputation.
One 2018 exchange, for example, focused on Trump’s threats at the time to oust Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. In a 2019 message, Bannon asked Epstein if he could supply his plane to pick him up in Rome.
Bannon hasn’t responded to emails seeking comment.
A national security adviser to the Slovakian prime minister, Lajcak resigned Saturday after his past communications with Epstein appeared in Friday’s document release.
Opposition parties and a nationalist partner in Fico’s governing coalition had called for him to step down.
Lajcak, a former Slovak foreign minister and a onetime president of the U.N. General Assembly, has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but was photographed meeting with Epstein in the years between his initial release from jail and his subsequent indictment in 2019 on sex trafficking charges.
He said his correspondence with Epstein were part of his diplomatic duties.
Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Group Limited, invited Epstein to his private island in 2013, telling him in an email: “Any time you’re in the area would love to see you. As long as you bring your harem!”
Besides discussing Epstein visiting Branson’s Necker Island, in the British Virgin Islands, the two exchanged messages about philanthropy, Epstein’s ideas for a “disruptive” financial system and a “social good currency."
In one email, in 2011, Epstein said he offered Branson’s staff the use of his helicopter to transport an accident victim in the Virgin Islands.
In a Sept. 11, 2013 correspondence, Branson suggested Epstein could boost his public image if he could get Bill Gates to say “you’ve been a brilliant adviser to him, that you slipped up many years ago by sleeping with a 17 1/2 year old woman and were punished for it, that you’ve more than learnt your lesson and have done nothing that’s against the law since.”
A Branson spokesperson told the British news outlet the Independent that Branson’s “harem” comment referred to adult members of Epstein’s staff.
Branson later decided to sever ties with Epstein, the spokesperson said, after learning more about the “serious allegations” that had been made against him.
“Had they had the full picture and information, there would have been no contact whatsoever,” the spokesperson said.
Associated Press reporters from around the world contributed to this story.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick listens during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FILE - New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch arrives for NFL owners meetings, in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
FILE - Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, looks round as he leaves after attending the Easter Matins Service at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, England, April 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
