It was early spring 2016 and an extremely busy day at Herman Caicedo’s gym in Miami. There have been many champions, contenders and aspiring Olympians, from Asia to America. But the star of this session was an amateur bantamweight from Newark, Fresh Jersey: an 18-year-old boy with dimples – I apply that term literally because he shaved once, but only in the hope that it would finally make something grow. That would be Shakur Stevenson.

“He performed at least 40 rounds of sparring – without a break and never leaving the ring,” recalls Caicedo, an experienced trainer. “He won eight or 10 rounds against my champion, Juan Carlos Payano.”

Then he gave Claudio Marrero – 19-1 at junior lightweight – another eight. Chucky Flores? – Moises Flores of Guadalajara, Mexico, then 24-0 – and Yenifel Vicente, a nine-year super bantamweight veteran with 27 wins, including at least eight in each.

“Weren’t there some guys from Kazakhstan too?” I’m asking.

“Yes,” says Caicedo. – They did well too. And they didn’t even look tired.

Even though Stevenson was just a kid in a fight against hardened men, he inevitably gave it his all as well or better than he could have done. But the last competitor he faced that day was a kid like him from Florida, Brooklyn, Fresh York, and also competing for a spot on the Olympic team. Teofimo Lopez Jr. he was a lightweight, just 32 days younger. How that day went depends on who you ask (as well as boxing judges, actually). The friend who talked me into this incredible session – four-minute rounds with 30 seconds of rest in between – recalls how Stevenson beat Lopez. But Caicedo, who is listed, remembers differently: “Look, it was a good job, not some drag fight. Shakur had just gone 40 rounds and Teo was fresh. But Teo probably did better. Shakur was very versatile, well-trained, didn’t make any mistakes. But Teo seemed a little faster, more athletic, more explosive, more like Roy Jones, you know what I’m saying? They both impressed me.”

You learn from sparring at your own risk. I know it. The bravest fighters I have ever seen – Muhammad Ali and Evander Holyfield – were notoriously underperforming in the gym. Ten years later, that day in Miami says something about each fighter, who they have become and how they will emerge from Saturday’s 140-pound title fight at Madison Square Garden. If they were princes then, they are now fighting to be kings, to be seen as the successors (at least in this hemisphere) of Terence Crawford and the ever-present spirit of Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“We signed both players thinking they could be great,” says Carl Moretti, the senior vice president who signed each of them ahead of the 2016 Olympics. “But the truth is, they’re even better than we thought.”

The fact that they are no longer considered top-level players is a different story, and a sorrowful one at that. But the more significant issue remains. All conversations at the beginning of this decade of the next Four Kings era (or maybe five?) turned out to be typical boxing fraud. But Stevenson and Lopez, now 28 each, represent the best of their generation, the most talented players with the deepest resumes. “Two guys in great shape who want to challenge each other,” says Lopez. “It helps the sport. It sets an example.”

I must note that such examples are subsidized and made possible by Saudi financier Turki Alalshikh. However, the fascinating element here is the warriors themselves – not only their talent, but also the huge discrepancy in their temperaments and career paths, which seem diametrically opposed.

Stevenson is similar to the kid from 2016. If there is something almost heroic about his sparring, it is due to his unrelenting obsession with the sport. “His life is boxing,” says Antonio Leonard, Stevenson’s co-organizer from the beginning. “He will go anywhere, he will never turn down a job. I saw him in sparring [Gervonta] “Tank” Davis – twice – in Baltimore. Tank couldn’t do anything about Shakur. I remember when he first started sparring with Terence.

He means Crawford. “I said, ‘Terence, don’t go simple on him, right?'”

“Hell no,” Crawford said. – I’m trying to kill him. Stevenson, unlike Crawford, is not a particularly brutal fighter. He won’t finish you off with one punch. And if you still want to criticize his lackluster win over Edwin De Los Santos, understand that he still won easily despite injuries to his right hand, left hand, and shoulder. Also understand that he understands distance the way Albert Einstein understood physics. He is the best defensive player of his generation and therefore the most avoided. Warriors are not afraid of beatings; they are afraid of being humiliated and of looking stupid and helpless. That’s what makes Stevenson a great fighter.

Now a photo is circulating on the Internet: Mayweather, Andre Ward, Crawford and Stevenson. He became convinced that he was next in line, that he was the all-time, No. 1 pound-for-pound. This may be true, but only if he plays as the bookmakers expect and beats Lopez. And that in itself – Teofimo’s prediction – is the most misleading of propositions.

According to DraftKings Sportsbook, Lopez is roughly a 2-1 underdog over Stevenson. In other words, Stevenson is a bigger favorite to fight Lopez than Lopez was in his last fight against Arnold Barboza Jr. Now consider this: Lopez scored a spectacular victory over Vasily Lomachenko.

“He kept asking about Loma when no one thought he had a chance – so what does anyone really know?” asks Lopez’s manager, Keith Connolly. “The truth is we beat an undefeated southpaw.”

In 2020, it was Lomachenko. In 2023, it was the best (or so it was thought) 140-pounder in the world, the time-tested former Olympian Josh Taylor. I will always remember the build-up to this fight, when Teofimo told me about his humble fantasy of dying in the ring. Then he started doing it with his father/coach, Teofimo Lopez Sr., on camera. I thought it would fall apart and I would definitely lose. He then made Taylor’s job easier.

This is the difference between Lopez and Stevenson. Where Stevenson is rational, always calculating and focused solely on boxing, Lopez is performative, charismatic and always has a hint of family drama. Stevenson wants to be a great fighter above all else. Lopez wants this too, but she wants to be loved and adored even more.

A few years ago, Stevenson lost his weight belts. He had been urinating blood for hours and had reached the point where simply trying to gain weight was threatening everything he loved. Lopez, on the other hand, endured a terrible weight cut that could have easily killed him, and lost the title (albeit by a whisker) in the ring against George Kambosos Jr. Then he bragged about it.

“The best thing that could have happened to me,” he told me.

Given Lopez’s undeniable talent for making life tough for himself, it’s worth noting that he turned down what was widely considered an easier and even more attractive fight with Devin Haney. Since Haney is also trained by an persuasive father, this could have gone down as the Super Bowl of boxing dads. But that would make Lopez the favorite.

“It just felt like the right time,” Lopez told me Wednesday afternoon. “I was dealing with personal matters, as you know, it happens in my career: marriage, family matters. It turned out the way it turned out.”

It worked – not coincidentally, I think – with Lopez as the underdog.

Now I remind him of that day in Miami ten years ago. “I remember,” he says. “We were both very knowledgeable players with high IQs and we were very selective with our punches. But you can’t do that in sparring. It was only three rounds.”

This one is forever.