ATLANTA – A stone-faced Jamel Herring stood approximately three inches taller than Shakur Stevenson as they went face-to-face following their weigh-in Friday afternoon.
His three-inch height advantage aside, Herring remains a huge underdog entering their 12-round, 130-pound championship match Saturday night at State Farm Arena. Caesars Sportsbook lists Stevenson as a 9-1 favorite over Herring, even though Herring will make the fourth defense of his WBO junior lightweight title in a main event ESPN will televise as the headliner of a three-bout broadcast set to start at 10:30 p.m. EDT.
Herring, 35, officially weighed 129.8 pounds when he stepped on the Georgia Athletic & Entertainment Commission’s scale at the Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center. Stevenson, 24, officially weighed exactly 130 pounds.
Herring (23-2, 11 KOs), a Cincinnati resident raised in Coram, New York, is 7-0 since he joined Terence Crawford’s training team of Brian McIntyre and Jacqui “Red” Spikes early in 2018. Stevenson (16-0, 8 KOs), a 2016 Olympic silver medalist from Newark, New Jersey, has won all three of his junior lightweight fights since he vacated his WBO featherweight title in the spring of 2020 to compete within the 130-pound division.
The official weights for all eight fights on the Herring-Stevenson undercard are listed below.
ESPN; 10:30 p.m. EDT; 7:30 p.m. PDT
Xander Zayas (10-0, 7 KOs), San Juan Puerto Rico, 153.2 pounds vs. Dan Karpency (9-3-1, 4 KOs), Adah, Pennsylvania, 153.2 pounds, 6 rounds, junior middleweights.
Nico Ali Walsh (1-0, 1 KO), Las Vegas, 162 pounds vs. James Wesley II (1-0, 0 KOs), Toledo, Ohio, 159.6 pounds, 4 rounds, super middleweights.
ESPN+ (7:30 p.m. EDT; 4:30 p.m. PDT)
Evan Holyfield (7-0, 5 KOs), Atlanta, 151.6 pounds vs. Charles Stanford (6-3, 3 KOs), Cincinnati, 151.6 pounds, 6 rounds, junior middleweights.
Troy Isley (2-0, 1 KO), Alexandria, Virginia, 156.8 pounds vs. Nicholi Navarro (2-1, 2 KOs), Denver, 156 pounds, 4 rounds, middleweights.
Roddricus Livsey (8-0-1, 5 KOs), Atlanta, 142.4 pounds vs. Eric Palmer (12-14-5, 1 KO), Uniontown, Pennsylvania, 141 pounds, 6 rounds, welterweights
Haven Brady Jr. (3-0, 3 KOs), Albany, Georgia, 127 pounds vs. Roberto Negrete (3-0, 1 KO), 127 pounds, Corpus Christi, Texas, 4 rounds, junior lightweights.
Jerrion Campbell (2-1, 0 KOs), Jacksonville, Texas, 142.4 pounds vs. Antoine Cobb (pro debut), Chicago, 144.2 pounds, 4 rounds, welterweights.
Harley Mederos (1-0, 1 KO), Brooklyn, 136 pounds vs. Deljerro Revello (0-1), Brighton, Colorado, 135.8 pounds, 4 rounds, junior welterweights.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.