Teofimo Lopez and Shakur Stevenson are set for a showdown Saturday at Madison Square Garden

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.

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 Carlos Adames (24-1, 18 KOs) defends his middleweight title against Austin “Ammo” Williams (19-1, 13 KOs); 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.”

AP boxing: https://apnews.com/boxing