By: Sean Crose
The 19-0 Shakur Stevenson invaded the lightweight division on Saturday night in front of a hometown crowd at Newark, New Jersey’s Prudential Center. His opponent in the scheduled 12 round eliminator for the WBC title was the 16-0 Shuichiro Yoshino. Stevenson made sure to maintain range in the first, which meant he dictated the tempo of the round. Yoshino applied pressure in the second and was rewarded by being sent to the mat by a solid Stevenson left. Yoshino was able to beat the count and battle on.
Stevenson thudded his man with power shots in the third. It appeared to be only a matter of time. A left-right combination put Yoshino down again in the fourth. Once again, Yoshino gamely got to his feet. And to his credit, Yoshino was able to fight his way through the fifth. A lesser man would already have been finished by that point. By the sixth, the referee had seen enough. Yoshino was still on his feet, but he was taking serious punishment. The fight was wisely stopped, with Stevenson having made a brilliant debut at lightweight.