The post-match reactions to the lightweight title fight between Shakur Stevenson and Edwin De Los Santos on Thursday, November 16th, have sharply lowered the opinion of both fighters due to the lackluster nature of their bout. Boxers, journalists, and other contemporaries in boxing have weighed in on the fight, and the consensus is overwhelmingly negative.
Super lightweight contender Ryan Garcia, set for his own fight on December 2nd, strongly criticized the title bout between Shakur Stevenson (21-0, 10 KO’s) and Edwin De Los Santos (16-2, 14 KO’s) in a now-deleted Tweet:
“Imagine going to this fight on Formula 1 weekend. I would ask for my money back and go straight to bed, that’s how sleepy I’d be from being there,” Garcia said about the fight.
Boxing journalist Dan Rafael was more critical, unequivocally labeling the fight as bad and highlighting how it broke the CompuBox record. The fight was rated with the lowest-recorded number of landed punches in any 12-round fight in the history of the sport.
“How bad was it? De Los Santos set the CompuBox record for landing the fewest punches (40) in a 12-round fight of the thousands the company has tracked during its 38 years,” Rafael stated on Fight Freaks Unite (FFU).
Specifically, Edwin De Los Santos broke this record by landing the lowest amount of punches ever recorded in a 12-round fight, a record that Shakur Stevenson contributed to due to his unwillingness to engage with De Los Santos.
Given that the fight occurred two days before the Formula One kicked off its Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend, it naturally drew more attention in the build-up to this racing event, which was set to occur close to the T-Mobile Arena where the fight card was held.
With figures such as Floyd Mayweather Jr., Terence Crawford, and Andre Ward in attendance, the fight did not live up to the attention it received, further compounding the disappointment of the main event and prompting an apology from Stevenson to the aforementioned fighters:
“I apologize to him [Floyd Mayweather Jr.], I apologize to Andre Ward, I apologize to Terence Crawford,” Stevenson stated during a post-match interview.
“I put up a bad performance. They came in to see a great performance, and I put up a bad one.“
The fact that Stevenson continuously attempted to clarify his bad performance while maintaining he was not making excuses only added to the confusion and frustration.
“It just wasn’t me. I had a lot going on,” Stevenson said during one of his post-bout interviews. “I ain’t going to make excuses; it was a good fight, just a bad performance and not [up] to my standards.”
In another interview, conducted shortly after the announcement of his title victory, Stevenson cited physical problems as one of the likely reasons for his disappointing performance.
“I wasn’t feeling too good, so I’ll live with it, it’s okay. I came here, I got the victory, and that’s all I wanted to do.” Stevenson stated.
Shakur Stevenson is now the WBC lightweight champion and will likely be angling for a match with Devin Haney (30-0, 15 KO’s), who currently holds the remaining three world titles in the division. A bout between these two Americans would be considered one of the biggest fights in boxing, as these former prospects-turned-champions would step into the ring to put their undefeated records on the line for the chance to become undisputed.
