The Psychological Game: How Shakur Stevenson’s Relentless Social Media Pressure Puts Teofimo Lopez In A No-Win Situation

Shakur Stevenson is leaving his dignity behind as he continues his tireless pursuit of Teofimo Lopez on X, trying to get him to agree to a fight.

Psychological Warfare on Social Media

Today, Shakur (24-0, 11 KOs) continued to ratchet pressure on Teofimo by directly questioning him on social media. By making it public, Shakur is using psychological warfare. The daily callouts that Stevenson is doing may seem unhinged and obsessive to the average fan, but the focus here is to force Lopez to make a decision.

It’s an automatic loss for Teofimo to reject the fight, as it hurts his reputation and artificially raises Shakur’s status. It’s a primitive type of approach that Stevenson is using, but it’s working. Many fans believe that Teofimo is ducking Shakur and is afraid. They overlook the possibility that Teo is waiting for Turki Alalshikh to increase the offer.

Say mf now u ignoring me is we fighting or what? @TeofimoLopez

— Shakur Stevenson (@ShakurStevenson) August 27, 2025

Distracting from His Own Career

The callouts by Shakur also serve the purpose of taking the heat off of him from fans, who are pushing for him to defend against his #1 WBC contender, Andy Cruz, or reschedule the fight against Floyd Schofield Jr. As long as Stevenson is nagging Lopez for a fight, it distracts fans from putting his feet to the fire to to defend against Andy Cruz or Schofield.

Fans have noted that both Shakur and his ‘brother’ Keyshawn Davis are going after Teofimo at the same time at 140. Earlier today, it was reported that Keyshawn (13-0, 9 KOs) is petitioning the WBO to install him as Teofimo’s #1 contender at 140, automatically placing him in front of the current #1 Alfredo Santiago without ever having fought in the division.

A Shortcut for Keyshawn Davis

If Teofimo vacates his WBO title to avoid Keyshawn, it could lead to him being elevated if he’s installed as the #1 contender by the sanctioning body.  Keyshawn was stripped of his WBO lightweight title for failing to make weight on June 6th, 2025, for his title defense against Edwin De Los Santos.