Shakur Stevenson (19-0, 9 KOs) weighed 134.4 lbs, while his opponent Shuichiro Yoshino (16-0, 12 KOs) weighed 135 lbs at Friday’s weigh-in for their WBC lightweight title eliminator on Saturday night on ESPN at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Like yesterday at the final press conference, Stevenson, 25, stared holes through Yoshino during their face-off, but the difference today was there was no attempt at a handshake from the Japanese fighter, and they didn’t need to be separated.
2016 Olympic silver medalist Stevenson is making his debut at 135 after losing his WBC & WBO 130-lb titles on the scale last September for his fight against Robson Conceicao. Stevenson was planning on moving up to lightweight anyway after that fight, so it wasn’t a surprise that he didn’t stay at super featherweight.
The winner of the Stevenson vs. Yoshino fight will be the WBC mandatory to undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney. As big as Haney has been looking lately, he may not stay around long enough to defend against Haney or Yoshino.
“Yoshino looked real confident yesterday. This dude may be the toughest opponent of my life. You don’t know how much he trained and what kind of shape he will be in,” said Shakur Stevenson to Chris Mannix on Boxing about his fight against Yoshino on Saturday night.
“I’ve got to take him like I’m fighting the biggest fight of my life, and that’s how I’m looking at this fight,” Shakur said of his fight against the upset-minded Yoshino.
“If I had to, I could go back to 130, but it would have to be for a big fight. All the big fights are at 135. I could have been undisputed at 130. If I did that, I don’t think it would have been too hard, to be honest.
“I think it was three or four altogether. It was Isaac Cruz, [William] Zepeda, [George] Kambosos. ” Three opponents said no,” said Shakur when asked how many contenders rejected the fight with him before Shuichino Yoshino agreed to take it.
“I think boxing lets certain fighters get away with ducking. I think if it was me, they would have broadcast it and told the whole world that I was scared like they did with Floyd before he fought Pacquiao.
“There was two guys that p***d me off. Isaac Cruz, his excuse was that I was going to be running. If you seen my last two fights, I was standing in the pocket beating people up. So I disagree with that,” said Shakur.
“The next one that p***d me off was [William] Zepeda. Zepeda p***d me off because if he was really looking for an opportunity, a fight with me would have been a perfect opportunity.
“It seemed like he wanted the fight, but De La Hoya didn’t allow the fight to happen. I think that he needed to put his foot down and let him know that fight is definitely happening and they can’t do nothing about it.
“I agree. I think me and him [Zepeda] would be a really fun fight. It would be an entertaining and exciting fight because he’s going to push the pace, and nothing that I’m bringing, he’d be thinking in his brain would stop him,” said Shakur.
