- Lomachenko's unretirement landed on Tuesday. Within an hour, Shakur Stevenson had reposted it with a single fire emoji and no caption.
- The pair have circled each other publicly since 2019. This is the closest the fight has ever been to actually being made.
- Luke's call — Lomachenko vs Stevenson is the cleanest skill fight in boxing right now. Make it before either side changes their mind.
Right Then — A Fire Emoji, And Six Years Of Waiting
Right then. Less than 24 hours after Mike Coppinger's Ring report had Vasiliy Lomachenko coming out of retirement and targeting a fall return as a free agent, Shakur Stevenson reposted the news on X. No caption. No paragraph. One fire emoji. That is, in the Stevenson vocabulary, basically a press conference.
Make no mistake — Stevenson has wanted this fight since 2019. He sparred Loma as an amateur, has talked about that camp in every long-form interview he has ever sat down for, and has spent the better part of six years publicly accusing the Ukrainian of ducking him. The retirement announcement in June 2025 was supposed to close the door for good. The Ring report on Tuesday opened it back up. The fire emoji is what you do when the fight you have begged for is suddenly a contract negotiation away from real.
Why The Fight Suddenly Has Legs
Three things have changed in the last eight days that have made Lomachenko vs Stevenson genuinely possible. First, Loma's Top Rank deal expired on May 12 — he is, for the first time in his professional career, an actual free agent who can sign with anyone. Second, Stevenson's Zuffa Boxing announcement is in the final stages and Dana White's people have been openly briefing that they want a Loma fight as the centrepiece of the back end of the year. Third, and most importantly, both fighters now want it for almost exactly the same reason — legacy.
Loma is 38. He has not fought since stopping George Kambosos Jr in May 2024. The IBF lightweight belt has been gone two years. He does not need a tune-up fight on a Top Rank Tuesday card. He needs a name. Stevenson is 28, holds the WBC lightweight title, and has been openly told by his own team that the only way he gets out of the Bomac shadow is by beating a Hall of Famer. Loma fits exactly. The promoters were always going to be the obstacle. Both promoters have, this week, just been removed.
What The Fight Actually Is
On a technical level, Lomachenko vs Stevenson is the cleanest skill fight in boxing right now. Both men are southpaws. Both men are ring generals first, punchers second, and entertainers a distant third. There is a real argument — and Tim Bradley made it on the ESPN podcast on Wednesday — that this is the most schematically interesting fight at lightweight since Mayweather-Pacquiao. The trouble is that an interesting fight on paper is not always an interesting fight live, and a 38-year-old Lomachenko against a 28-year-old Stevenson is going to be a slow-burn 12 rounds.
The Davis Question
The other name in the room is Gervonta Davis, who Loma's manager Egis Klimas openly named as a preferred opponent in the fall before the Cruz rematch ate that conversation up. Davis is a more lucrative night than Stevenson on PPV, and he is a more dangerous fight on paper for a 38-year-old technician. The legal stuff Davis is dealing with right now makes that fight a lot harder to actually contract, which is why most of the smart money has shifted onto Stevenson getting the call once the Zuffa deal is signed.
Luke's Prediction
If Lomachenko vs Stevenson actually gets contracted, I have Stevenson winning a wide decision. Loma at 38 is still magic for three rounds at a time, but he is no longer magic for twelve, and Stevenson is younger, longer, and was never going to lose this fight on volume. The honest answer is that this fight should have been made in 2022 and we are now talking about a worse version of it. Make it anyway.
Brilliant skill fight, every round. Stevenson 116-112 in November or December at the Garden, with Loma getting the third-act standing ovation he has earned ten times over. Then Stevenson chases the Devin Haney rematch, Loma walks off into the next sunset, and the lightweight division finally gets the fight it has owed itself for six years.