Heading into his showdown against Edwin De Los Santos, Shakur Stevenson promised to put on a show. However, as the rounds grew more and more mundane, fans began booing profusely. Once they realized that the action simply wasn’t going to pick up, they grabbed their belongings and headed for the exit.
Lack of excitement aside, Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs) struggled. Normally, the former Olympic silver medalist and current three-division champion has a relatively easy time in the ring. De Los Santos though, made Stevenson work. The make you miss and make you pay style that he normally implements was innocuous. Still, the 26-year-old managed to eke out the win.
For close to two months, Stevenson has been publicly chastised for his performance. Admittingly, he knows that he didn’t put his best foot forward. With that said, instead of nitpicking himself, Stevenson is giving all of the credit in the world to De Los Santos for giving him a tough time.
“De Los Santos is a really good fighter,” wrote Stevenson on his social media account. “He’s world champion caliber with really good skills and has a great future.
For the first time in his career, Stevenson wasn’t dominant, at least not from the judge’s perspective. According to all three sitting ringside, he did just enough to snag the win. Quietly, chants of a rematch have reverberated around Stevenson. Sort of.
On one end, a certain collection of fans would love to see De Los Santos get another crack at Stevenson and his newly won WBC lightweight title. On the other hand, the action between them was few and far between.
The noise surrounding a possible rematch was one that Stevenson ignored. Seeing how he took care of business the first time around, he saw no need to run things back. Nevertheless, after thinking things over, he now believes that De Los Santos should be given another chance…just not in the immediate.
“I’m for sure willing to give him a rematch down the line but that night was his best shot at beating me and he blew it.”