As expected, WBC 135-pound champion Shakur Stevenson easily defeated Artem Harutyunyan by unanimous decision on Saturday night in front of 8,412 fans at the Prudential Center in his hometown of Newark, NJ.
Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) won easily on the scorecards, with scores of 119-109, 118-110, and 116-112.
He used his superior boxing skills, and it was hit and not get hit.
According to CompuBox, Stevenson landed 170 of 446 thrown punches, while Harutyunyan landed only 74 of his 423 punches thrown. At times, Stevenson, who landed 66 body shots, hurt Harutyunyan (12-2, 7 KOs) with those body shots.
It was another easy night at the office for the 27-year-old Stevenson.
After what some called a boring fight against Edwin De Los Santos last November, the thought was Stevenson was going to look to impress on Saturday. However, at times, his hometown crowd was not happy with the lack of action, and they expressed their pleasure by booing their hometown hero.
Stevenson said the boos because the 33-year-old Harutyunyan did not want to press the action.
“I think the boos were because of him,” Stevenson said. “He didn’t try to make the fight.”
According to Stevenson, he tried to engage Harutyunyan, but all his opponent wanted to do was survive.
“It’s kind of hard to prove it if you don’t have a fighter who wants to fight back,” Stevenson said. “He’s just trying to make sure he survives. He’s a good fighter. He’s tough. He’s strong. I would’ve wanted him to try a little harder, so that way it could be a more fun fight,” Stevenson said. “I have to cut off the ring a bit more. He’d go one way and then go the other way, so I gotta go back in the gym and work on cutting off the gym.”
After the fight, Stevenson made it clear that he wanted Gervonta Davis or Vasiliy Lomachenko. Stevenson believes the best fighters will bring out the best in him.
“We’ll see {what’s next},” he said. “Like I said, I want to fight the best fighters in boxing. That’s how you’ll see the best version of me. Put me in the ring with somebody else who wants to fight back and compete. That’s when you’ll get the best out of me.”
Stevenson is now a promotional-free agent, so seeing where he goes next should be interesting. If he’s not signed to Top Rank, he probably won’t get the Lomachenko fight. Regarding Davis, if Stevenson doesn’t sign with PBC, he might not get that fight either, so we’ll see where he goes next.
Regarding his entertainment value, it does take two to tango, and while the fight was not very entertaining, it was not all on Stevenson. You would have liked to have seen him pick up the pressure to get the stoppage, but it wasn’t in the cards.
Photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank Boxing
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