O'Shaquie Foster answers Shakur Stevenson: 'I've always said he was a great fighter'

The unified super-featherweight champion says he would fight Stevenson at 135 or 140lb, and that his team got no answer when they asked for the fight earlier this year.

O'Shaquie Foster has answered Shakur Stevenson's claim that he "will never give me my credit", telling The Ariel Helwani Show: "I don't know what he's talking about when he say never give him his credit. I've always said he was a great fighter."

Stevenson wrote after Foster's unanimous-decision win over Emanuel Navarrete in San Antonio on Saturday: "Hell of a fighter. He will never give me my credit, but I'll be real tonight, he showed his level. That's a challenge that would get me out of bed. Let's do it whenever he's ready. I'll be here after his undisputed run."

Foster, who now holds the WBC, WBO and IBF super-featherweight titles, said he had never called Stevenson "terrible". "I want to be on the other side of that ring from him," he said. "I guess he take the way that I talk about him as me not giving him his credit. But, man, he a great fighter. You can't take that away from him."

Asked whether he would face Stevenson at 135lb once he becomes undisputed, Foster said: "Yeah, I'm interested in fighting, man. Whichever one, 35 or 40, whichever one, I'm cool with." Stevenson holds the WBO junior welterweight title at 140lb, and the WBO has ordered him to defend it against Raymond Muratalla next.

Foster said his team asked for the Stevenson fight after his previous win earlier this year. "I kept asking, we kept asking," he said. "We didn't hear nothing. Top Rank didn't hear nothing." He then took the Navarrete fight instead.

On Stevenson's release from Zuffa Boxing after the promotion tried to make a fight with Devin Haney, Foster said: "Man, you gotta fight, man." He said that if he offered Ryan Garcia a fight, he would move up to 147lb rather than ask for a catchweight: "If I say I'm gonna fight you, I'll come your weight class and fight you."

Foster also agreed at ringside to fight Vasiliy Lomachenko next year, though no date or venue has been set.

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