Shakur Stevenson (19-0, 9 KOs) took 2016 Olympic gold medalist Robson Conceicao (17-2, 8 KOs) to school, beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
For Stevenson, this was his homecoming, and he didn’t disappoint his fans with this performance. He dropped Conceicao in the fourth round.
Later in the fight, Stevenson lost a point for pushing the 33-year-old Conceicao down in the ninth. That move showed that Stevenson wasn’t comfortable with getting hit back after often as he was tonight.
The judge’s scores were 117-109, 118-108, and 117-109.
Stevenson missed the 130-pound weight limit by 1.6 pounds on Thursday and was stripped of his WBC and WBO world titles, so only Conceição was eligible to win the titles with a victory.
Undercard results:
- Undefeated lightweight prospect Keyshawn Davis (6-0, 5 KOs) defeated Omar Tienda (25-6, 18 KOs) by a fifth round knockout. Keyshawn knocked Tienda down with a big right to the head in the fifth. After Tienda got back up, Keyshawn flurried on him until the referee stepped in to halt the contest. The time of the stoppage was at 1:38.
- Undefeated junior middleweight prospect Pablo Valdez (7-0, 6 KOs) stopped Noe Alejandro Lopez (11-6-1, 4 KOs) in the fourth round. Lopez was knocked down once in the third and twice more in the fourth. The time of the stoppage was 2:45.
- Undefeated welterweight prospect Jahir Tucker (9-0, 5 KOs) beat Jose Luis Sanchez (11-3-1, 4 KOs) by an eight round unanimous decision. The judges’ scores were 80-72, 80-72, and 79-73.
- Featherweight Misael Lopez (14-1, 5 KOs) defeated Orlando Gonzalez (18-2, 11 KOs) by an eight round unanimous decision. The judges scored 78-74, 79-73, and 77-75.
- Super bantamweight prospect Floyd Diaz (7-0, 2 KOs) beat Juan Hernandez (2-2-1, 0 KOs) by a six round unanimous decision. The 19-year-old Diaz dropped Hernandez in the third round. The scores were 58-55, 58-55, and 59-54.
- Jaylan Phillips (1-2-2, 1 KO) and Antoine Cobb (1-0-2, 1 KOs) fought to a disappointing four round draw in welterweight action.
Preview:
Shakur Stevenson (18, 9 KOs) lost his WBC & WBO super featherweight titles on the scales on Thursday after weighing in at 131.6 lbs. He says he gave it his best shot to take off the 1.6 lbs, but he couldn’t do it.
As a result, the two belts will be available for Conceicao (17-1, 8 KOs) to win tonight, but not Shakur.
Stevenson had been planning on announcing that he’ll be moving up to 135 after his fight with Conceicao, but after missing weight, he announced his plans ahead of time.
“Once you sitting in the tub and you see .4, and you’ve a whole pound left, you know right there that you can’t get to that weight,” said Shakur Stevenson to ESPN about his efforts to make weight for Thursday’s weigh-in.
“I spoke to my grandfather; I spoke to James Prince and Antonio Leonard. Everyone agreed with me. I told them, ‘I don’t think I can get to this weight. I put everything in my power.’
“They were right there with me for some of it, so they actually got to see the weight cut process. They agreed with me and told me that I shouldn’t put my health at risk trying to do something that really can’t be done.
“I know I did everything in my power to try and get to the weight. I just couldn’t. There’s nothing else,” said Shakur when asked if there was anything else he could have done to make weight. “When your body won’t create no sweat.
“That’s how you’re going to lose weight with the water that comes out of you. That, I worked out. There was nothing else I could have done. I ran, I worked out, and I got in the hot tub. I done so many different things in trying to make weight. My life is more important,” said Shakur.
Shakur Stevenson will be headlining tonight against Robson Conceicao on ESPN at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The action starts for the main portion of the card at 10:00 p.m. ET.
