Old-timers may find it nostalgic. For the first time in years, boxing kicks off a year with a banger –  a marquee event where the best fight the best. Amanda Serrano may have opened the calendar with her unified title defense in Puerto Rico, but it is Teofimo Lopez vs. Shakur Stevenson that takes center stage now. With a win over Shakur, Teofimo would establish himself as one of the era’s preeminent fighters. The same is true for the Olympic silver medalist, who is aiming to become a four-division world champion. For both, it is a legacy-defining fight.

The impact of the DAZN-streamed bout in New York on January 31 could reverberate across the sport and set a template for what comes next. The case becomes even stronger when, roughly a week before Lopez and Stevenson headline the Ring VI card, boxing will witness history as Dana White‘s newly formed promotion, Zuffa Boxing, makes its debut under the new Paramount-Skydance broadcast deal. Promising to revolutionize what he has called a “broken sport,” White seems intent on making the best fight the best under a UFC-style format.

Dana White and Zuffa unsettled boxing’s old guard

Ever since, those claims have set off alarm bells across boxing’s old guard. Legacy promoters have been watching Zuffa’s rise with growing unease. Will the new promotion, backed by major industry players, threaten their long-held dominance?

White raised eyebrows when he staged the Terence Crawford-Canelo Alvarez fight four months ago. The subsequent announcement of Zuffa’s inaugural event only deepened that anxiety. Last month, Dana White and Nick Khan traveled to Texas for the U.S. Boxing Championships.

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Reports suggested they were scouting potential recruits ahead of Zuffa’s January 23 debut event. With talk of a roster approaching 200 fighters, fans are bracing for a UFC-style league in which one promotion controls rankings, titles, and pay structures.

That scenario takes on even more weight in light of Zuffa’s parent company, TKO, backing changes to the Muhammad Ali Reform Act that could create a unified governing structure for boxing, modeled after the UFC.

Teofimo vs. Shakur signals boxing’s counterpunch

Faced with those questions, the establishment went into overdrive. Before the new entrants could land another coup, they rushed to assemble their own best-versus-best spectacle. The fight between Teofimo Lopez, the WBO and Ring light welterweight champion, and Shakur Stevenson appears to be one of the clearest results of that scramble.

Neither fighter is currently tied to a promoter. Lopez’s deal with Top Rank has ended, while Stevenson’s Matchroom contract expired last July after his bout with William Zepeda. Their title fight is taking place under The Ring banner, which is owned by Riyadh Season – a group that also has a partnership with Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing venture.

However tangled the politics may be, the upcoming clash between Lopez and Stevenson lays the groundwork for a future in which fans may finally see more high-profile matchups, helping keep the sport’s core audience from drifting away.

New chapter where the best fight the best

Traditional power brokers now find themselves up against a competitor with unprecedented financial muscle. Over the past few months, promoters such as Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing and Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy have publicly lashed out at White and his venture, but even they can sense the ground shifting beneath them.

And the ripple effects of Lopez vs. Stevenson only add to that pressure. Promoters have spent months circling the long-discussed matchup between Jaron Ennis and Vergil Ortiz Jr. Now, just when it appeared the fight might collapse like so many before it, pressure from broadcaster DAZN has pushed the bout closer to reality.

There is another telling example. After years of delay, a super fight between Japan’s two biggest stars – Naoya Inoue and Junto Nakatani – now looks increasingly plausible.

With so much in motion heading into the spring, it is clear that Dana White’s entry into boxing has forced the sport’s traditional stakeholders to rethink their strategies. Unless big, must-see fights are delivered, there is a real risk that fans will be drawn toward the new model being offered.

In that sense, Teofimo Lopez vs. Shakur Stevenson may prove to be the opening chapter of a longer story – one that could finally give boxing fans the elite matchups they have been demanding for years.