Shakur Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs) looked beyond horrible on Thursday night, beating Edwin De Los Santos (16-2, 14 KOs) by a highly questionable twelve round unanimous decision in a timid performance to win the vacant WBC lightweight crowd at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The fight had a repetitive pattern to it with De Los Santos attempting to intimate offense, Shakur pulling back immediately, and then tying him up when he would get close.
The Top Rank-promoted Shakur Stevenson’s unwillingness to stand his ground made the fight horribly boring and unwatchable for many fans.
Shakur clearly didn’t want to fight and was only thinking about defending. Although De Los Santos was rarely due to the movement, he at least the one who was attempting to make a fight of it. You could give him credit for that.
Fans at ringside booed the lack of action, and let both fighters hear their unhappiness afterwards.
The fight had few punches landed and very little action to speak of, mostly due to the 26-year-old Shakur Stevenson, who fought in a safety-first manner, running and reacting to every attempt of offense by De Los Santos by pulling straight back in what is referred to as the pull-back style.
The judges’s scores:
116-112
116-112
115-113
This writer had it for De Los Santos 117-111, as he was the better man tonight due to his attempting to initiate offense against the unwilling Shakur.
In the final 20 seconds of the final round, Shakur was smiling like he’d done a good job, yet not landing any punches for him to feel pleased with what he was doing.
After the fight, Shakur hinted about being injured in the contest. The ESPN commentators ran with that excuse, using it to explain away Shakur’s performance against De Los Santos, but that’s not why he fought like that.
Shakur has performed like that before against Jeremiah Nakathilia in 2021 and many of his earlier fights in the pro ranks. That’s how Shakur fights. He’s a fighter with a Mayweather-eque style, but less courageous than he was.
The non-effort from Shakur was similar to his performance against Robeisy Ramirez in the 2016 Olympics. In that fight, Stevenson retreated whenever Robeisy would attempt to initiate the offense. However, in that case, a smiling Robeisy enthusiastically chased Shakur all night, enjoying it like it was a game, and when he’d finally corner him, he’d tag him with shots.
Tonight, we didn’t see that from De Los Santos. When Shakur would pull back, De Los Santos just stood and watched rather than pursuing him like Robeisy did. That obviously was a mistake.
In the best fight of the card, WBO super featherweight champion Emanuel Navarrete (38-1-1, 31 KOs) fought to a 12 round majority draw against Robson Conceicao (17-2-1, 8 KOs).
The fight saw Conceicao dominating through much of the bout against a sluggish-looking Navarrete. What saved Navarrete from losing was his knockdowns of Conceicao in rounds four & seven. In the eleventh, Navarrete looked like he was close to scoring a knockout.
