In one of the most boxing title fights in memory, Shakur Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs), the ESPN house fighter, defeated Edwin De Los Santos (16-2, 14 KOs) by an incredibly boring twelve round unanimous decision to claim the vacant WBC lightweight title at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Shakur was retreating all night at every attempt of offense by De Los Santos, and the crowd absolutely hated it, boring like mad. What made things worse was the ESPN commentators having the audacity to praise Shakur for his performance, which was beyond laughable.
The judges scored the fight: 116-112, 115-113 and 116-112. This writer had De Los Santos winning 118-110. Shakur gets an F-grade for non-effort after this abysmal performance, which will be criticized by the fighters, media and fans alike.
The live boxing action results for tonight will be shown below.
– WBO super featherweight champion Emanuel Navarrete (38-1-1, 31 KOs) & Robson Conceicao (17-2-1, 8 KOs) battled to a disappointing twelve round majority draw. Navarrete looked terrible tonight despite knocking Conceicao down twice in the contest.
In the fourth, Navarrete dropped the 35-year-old Conceicao with a left uppercut followed by a chopping right to the head. Navarrete knocked Conceicao down a second time in round seven with a right hand body shot.
The scores:
- 114-112 – Navarrete
- 113-113
- 113-113
Apart from the fourth, seventh, and eleventh rounds, Navarrete’s best rounds, he was outworked & outboxed by the more skilled 2016 Olympic gold medalist Conceicao. Navarrete looked like he’d trained on a diet of Twinkies, as he did not look like he was in good shape tonight.
– In a disappointing performance, middleweight Troy Isley (11-0, 4 KOs) labored his way to a questionable eight round unanimous decision win over Vladimir Hernandez (14-6, 6 KOs).
The scores were 77-75, 77-75, and 77-75. Isley’s gas tank was on E after the sixth, and he spent the seventh and eighth using a straight arm to try to keep Hernandez off him.
This writer had Hernandez winning the fight. If the referee had taken multiple points off for Isley’s illegal straight arm that he’d used the entire fight, Hernadez easily would have won.
– Unbeaten lightweight Emiliano Vargas (8-0, 7 KOs), the son of boxing legend Fernando Vargas, knocked out Brandon Mendoza (6-3, 6 KOs) in the second round of a three-knockdown performance.
The bout was stopped at 57 seconds of round two after Mendoza was knocked down by a chopping right hand from the 19-year-old Vargas. It was a perfectly placed right hand from Vargas that sent Mendoza down. When Mendoza attempted to get back up, he fell with his face hitting the canvas.
In the first round, Vargas dropped Mendoza with an arching right hand that caught him behind the head. Moments later, Vargas knocked Mendoza down a second time with a right hand, causing him to touch the canvas with a glove. After the round, video replay revealed that Mendoza had been down.
– Lightweight prospect Abdullah Mason (11-0, 9 KOs) destroyed Jose Cardenas (7-2, 5 KOs) by a second round knockout after poleaxing him with a monstrous right hand in a scheduled six round fight.
Mason, 19, threw a perfect left jab followed by a right to the head that put the 23-year-old Cardenas down back first. The fight was stopped by referee Tony Weeks at 1:55 of round two.
In the first round, Mason knocked Cardenas down with a left to the head, catching him with a shot during an exchange.
Mason looks like the real deal, and has world champion written all over him. It’ll be interesting to see him and Shakur Stevenson mix it up in a few years.
Shakur Stevenson (20-0, 10 KOs) takes on the dangerous Edwin De Los Santos (16-1, 14 KOs) tonight for the vacant WBC lightweight title on ESPN. Stevenson must not only win tonight but also be entertaining to shake his reputation of being a boring fighter with a style that is hard on the eyes.
Shakur – De Los Santos event will be shown on ESPN & ESPN+ at 10:30 p.m. ET.
Emanuel Navarrete (38-1, 31 KO) defends his WBO super featherweight title against Robson Conceicao (17-2, 8 KOs) in the twelve round chief support bout.
Some boxing fans believe this should be the true main event, as Navarrete is more entertaining to watch than Shakur, and he’s someone who brings drama each time he fights.
Shakur needs a great performance tonight because his contract with Top Rank ends in one more fight, and he expects to be a lot of interest from other promotional companies once he’s free & clear.
Shakur wants to show the world tonight
“I just can’t wait for my opportunity to get into that big fight and get in front of the world and be able to show the world who I truly am,” said Shakur Stevenson to the Pivot podcast.
“Next year, my contract is up with Top Rank. Then we’re going to see where we go from there. If Top Rank wants to up the numbers because the price is going to go up regardless,” said Shakur.
“If you’re talking about the business aspect, I’m sitting back and learning right now, taking my notes and doing my homework on the older people in what they have done in their situations. That’s another fight within itself. So, I want to be prepared for that when the time comes.
“For right now, I got to focus on November 16th with Edwin. I got a guy in front of us that wants to beat me bad. So, I’ve got to stay focused on him. That was so frustrating. That frustrated me so much,” said Shakur about the Frank Martin fight not happening.
“Frank Martin was a guy that was never on my list. I never thought about Frank Martin just because he’d never really done nothing in the sport. He’s under Errol Spence. So we know him through Errol Spence.
“But truth be told, I never really had him on the list of people I wanted to fight. So, once the fight got accepted, the public got excited. I’m sitting back, ‘Okay, they’re thinking this is going to be a test,’ and I’m in the gym training hard. I’m like, ‘Let’s make it happen. That’s what I like to see.’
“It fell out. That was more on Frank Martin’s part. I know the details. I put it out there enough. He came up with his own excuses. If y’all understand boxing, y’all know the business. If somebody accepts the fight and says that ‘I’m going to fight,’ and then pulls out of the fight, whose side is it?
“I would never accept a fight and then say, ‘No, I’m not fighting,’ because he already accepted it. Why did you accept it for? This means somebody in your team must have felt, ‘Okay, let’s make this fight happen.’ They were more ready, but I think that maybe he had a little cold feet.
“I need them to know that I’m here. This will be my second fight at 135,” said Stevenson about tonight’s fight against De Los Santos. “I want the world to understand that I’m that guy. I want to prove that I’m the best fighter in the division,” said Shakur.
Stevenson warns De Los Santos
“Edwin De Los Santos, I’m not taking nothing away from him. He’s a great fighter. He’s going to be well-prepared, but he has to stand across from me, and when he stands across from me, he better be fully prepared because I’m training my a** for this dude,” said Stevenson.
“I’m not playing with this dude. I’m not taking him lightly. To me, this is the biggest fight of my career just from the fact that there’s a lot of eyes on me. So let’s show them.
“That moment is not going to scare me. I’m here. I hope everybody is tuned in. I hope everybody is watching. The more people watching the more I’m going to be turned up. I enjoy it. Put the pressure on me.
“Let’s make it happen. I ain’t tripping. I believe in myself. Pull your notebooks out and judge me. Let’s see what y’all got to say. If it was up to me, I’d be fighting at least three times a year. I love boxing, I love to fight.
“You got to ask Top Rank why I’m not fighting three times a year. Me personally, I’ll fight any day they give me. I’m ready to go. I can’t really give you an answer because I’m not the powers behind the scenes, but if it was up to me, I’d be fighting every weekend,” said Stevenson.
