Shut up and play the hits: Teofimo Lopez and Shakur Stevenson almost drowned out as The Ring 6 launches

Chris Mannix maybe nailed it better than anybody else in his opening remarks when he said that If it isn't the best against the best, the Garden isn't interested.

New York City lives and breathes sports. Outside of maybe a handful of other places in the world, you'd struggle to find a metropolis that loves a game like them.

Part of that appeal lies in the natural rivalry. Jets and Giants, Knicks and Nets, Mets and Yankees - you're generally one or the other with your club colours.

Boxing typically transcends those matters. Fight fans love it when the Big Apple packs one of their own against the out-of-towner, the overseas star, whoever.

Come January 31 though, Madison Square Garden will play host to two local heroes from opposite sides of the island of Manhattan, destined to meet in the middle.

Brooklyn's Teofimo Lopez will defend his WBO super lightweight crown against Newark's Shakur Stevenson at The Ring 6 next month, live on DAZN Pay-Per-View.

Few domestic fights will capture American boxing across the rest of 2026 like this one - a true start-the-year-with-a-bang bout that should pack fans to the rafters.

Yet at an echo-laden press conference on Wednesday that veered close to quasi-farcial grandiloquence on several occasions, it seems the fists need to do the talking.

'Generational fighters' nearly overshadowed at kick-off

Anyone who has caught a bout featuring either man in recent years knows their pedigree is hard-earned in the ring - champions who refuse to bow before the bell.

Matchroom Boxing supremo Eddie Hearn made reference in his opening comments to this being a matchup of "generational fighters", and few would disagree there.

Captured in microcosm though, viewers might be forgiven for thinking that neither man was the star of their own show as they sat at the top table inside an empty arena.

For starters, Lopez spent twenty minutes scribbling in his notebook, seemingly withdrawn and disinterested as The Ring CEO Rick Reeno lauded the headline matchup.

Stevenson too seemed to struggle with a microphone mixed too low for his responses, a problem that extended to Hearn at his side and the rest of his team on hand.

But mostly, fans were subjected to the prolonged macho rodomontade of Lopez's father, Teofimo Lopez Sr., as he extolled the virtues of his son as a man and fighter.

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Behind blacked-out sunglasses and a baseball cap, the elder man went back and forth with just about anybody, but mostly Stevenson, serving up lashings of smack talk.

Any early entertainment value petered out pretty fast, with his son occasionally arching an eyebrow at the diatribes in his defence that were repeatedly offered up.

'Father-son dynamics hang heavy on bout'

A brief interval for His Excellency Turki Alalshikh to confirm - via speakerphone - that a major May fight awaits the winenr was still not enough to curtail Lopez Sr.'s words.

By the time both men were called forward for their end-of-conference face-off, there seemed to be a sag of relief in their respective shoulders as they moved to the front.

Even then, Lopez Sr. was not finished, with Stevenson turning around during the prolonged pose to seemingly address him on the dais behind, before both camps split.

The father-son dynamic has enjoyed an arguable banner year in boxing, perhaps best exemplified by the duology played out between Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn.

Lopez Sr. too of course comes with more than just familial interest at stake, serving as key trainer for his son once again following his split from Eddy Reynoso this year.

Here however, in a matchup that most purists need little convincing on, the presence of a parent running three times as many words as their child felt strangely infantilising.

Madison Square Garden has seen its share of history over the years, but perhaps The Ring 6 could learn something from a different walk of life - that of the rock concert.

It was under this roof where LCD Soundsystem held their 2011 farewell show, a three-hour dance-rock monster that lives in local legend long after the band actually reunited.

As Lopez and Stevenson prepare for a legacy-defining bout, perhaps their teams can heed James Murphy's advice - that the best thing to do is shut up and play the hits.

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