Shakur Stevenson was anemic offensively Thursday night, admittedly not feeling his best.
So he leaned on his sound defensive ability to render Edwin De Los Santos useless. De Los Santos was only able to land a CompuBox-low 40 punches as Stevenson generated a unanimous decision victory to become the new WBC lightweight world champion in a low-action fight. Judges inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas scored it 115-113, 116-112 and 116-112.
With the victory, Stevenson becomes a a three-division world champ in the span of just nine fights. That's the fourth smallest total in boxing history.
However, the feat didn't include any fireworks as Stevenson failed to notch a double-digit punch output in any of the 12 rounds. He didn't allow De Los Santos to reach double digits in punches either, using the Dominican fighter's aggression against him to slip out of harm's way.
Though Stevenson was proud to become champion, he wasn't happy with his performance.
"I had a bad performance tonight. I wasn't feeling too good. I'll live with it, it's OK," Stevenson told ESPN+ following his win. "I just didn't feel good. Honestly, I already told myself, if I'm feeling like this in the ring and it's not going well, I'm going to make sure I box and get the victory."
Part of him not feeling well seemed to include Stevenson nursing his left hand, though he wouldn't divulge about it further.
"I don't got nothing to say about that. I don't make no excuses," Stevenson said. "It happens. We go through a lot as a fighter."
Stevenson, essentially with one hand, was able to pepper De Los Santos with the jab, while making him miss wildly and often enough to be crowned champ.
After the victory, the 26-year-old wouldn't bring himself to calling out a potential next opponent as he was still disappointed in his performance.
Here's how the entire Shakur Stevenson vs. Edwin De Los Santos main card went.