Shakur Stevenson returns to the ring on Saturday to defend his WBC lightweight title against Artem Harutyunyan at the Prudential Center in Newark, Recent Jersey (ESPN/ESPN+, 8:30 p.m. ET, with prelims on ESPN+ at 6:10 p.m. ET) in the main event of a Top Rank Boxing card that includes a junior lightweight title fight between WBC champion O’Shaquie Foster and perennial title challenger Robson Conceicao.

Stevenson (21-0, 10 KOs) is a former featherweight and junior lightweight champion. He also won silver at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics while representing the United States. After winning the WBO junior lightweight title with a 10th-round TKO victory over Jamel Herring in October 2021, Stevenson added the WBC belt with a unanimous decision victory over Oscar Valdez in April 2022. But Stevenson lost the belts on the scales when he failed to make weight for his title defense against Conceicao in September 2022. He then moved up to 135 pounds and scored a sixth-round TKO victory over Shuichiro Yoshino in April.

In November 2023, Stevenson defeated Edwin De Los Santos by unanimous decision (116-112, 115-113, 116-112) to win the then-vacant WBC lightweight title in a forgettable fight that broke the 38-year-old CompuBox record for most punches landed in a 12-round fight. De Los Santos landed only 40 total punches and only 14 power punches. Stevenson didn’t fare much better, landing only 65 total punches, including 19 power punches.

Regardless, Stevenson returned to the fight at home.

“It’s good to come back home to Newark, where a youthful legend is being celebrated, and to defend my title at 135 for the first time,” Stevenson said on May 7 after the fight was officially announced.

Harutyunyan (12-1, 7 KOs), from Yerevan, Armenia (but based in Hamburg, Germany), has never fought for a world title. In his first fight outside of Germany, he suffered the only defeat of his career, a unanimous decision to Frank Martin last July in Las Vegas.

“I respect Shakur Stevenson as a champion, but I’m here to shock his hometown fans and win the WBC lightweight championship,” Harutyunyan said. “This is the chance of a lifetime and I’ll take full advantage of it.”

Let’s take a look at the title fight by the numbers. This report uses information from ESPN Stats & Information and CompuBox.

1. Stevenson will defend the WBC lightweight title, which he won in July 2023 by defeating De Los Santos.

3. This is Stevenson’s third lightweight fight. He made his lightweight debut in April against Yoshino.

13. Unlucky number 13 for Harutyunyan, who, after winning his first 12 professional fights, lost a unanimous decision to Martin, which was his first defeat in his career.

7. Stevenson is the youngest fighter to win a third-division title since Naoya Inoue did so in 2019. Stevenson is also only the seventh fighter to do so in history.

1. Harutyunyan is looking to become the first German fighter to win the lightweight world title. Marco Rudolph lost by eighth-round technical knockout to Artur Grigorian in 1998 for the WBO belt.

6. Stevenson is the sixth fighter to become a three-division champion and also win an Olympic medal. The other five fighters on this list (Sugar Ray Leonard, Pernell Whitaker, Roy Jones Jr., Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather) have been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Stevenson is also the sixth fighter to win titles in the 126-, 130- and 135-pound weight classes, the youngest of that group to accomplish this feat.

46.83. Stevenson lands 46.83% of his power punches, which is third best according to CompuBox. He also has the lowest percentage of his opponents being struck (16.7%) in all of boxing, according to CompuBox.

In Their Own Words – From Wednesday’s Press Conference

Harutyunyan on this possibility: “I was born in Armenia and grew up in Germany. I came here to fight Shakur Stevenson in his hometown. This is a great opportunity for me. I will give it my all and give a great fight.”

Harutyunyan on his last fight in the US: “I came to Las Vegas last year. I fought Frank Martin. It was a great fight. I know Frank Martin knows he lost the fight. I told everyone I was going to come back to the States. And now it’s done. I’m back here.”

Harutyunyan on his preparations for the fight: “It’s a great opportunity. I had a great training camp and I’m well prepared. I’m ready for this fight. I know Shakur Stevenson is a good fighter. He’s a world champion. We both fought in the Olympics. He’s a silver medalist and I’m a bronze medalist. Now we’re fighting for the world championship.”

Stevenson on Harutyunyan’s praise during Wednesday’s press conference: “You’re trying to act really humble, suck up to me, and pretend like you’re not really coming here to win. No, you’re coming here to win, man. I can tell. He doesn’t sound as confident as I thought. I hope he’s coming here to fight.”

Stevenson on his approach to fighting: “I’m going to take him to a level he’s never been at. I’m just going to be myself. I’m going to go out there and show my talent and my level. I think I’m one of the best in boxing when it comes to hitting and not getting hit. There’s a certain way to do it, and I want to show the fans that all this moving around is something I don’t really have to do. I can sit in the pocket and hit you too.”

Shakur Stevenson believes his fight with Artem Harutyunyan this Saturday night will be the perfect “benchmark” for fans who will compare him to Gervonta “Tank” Davis.

Tank (30-0, 28 KOs) defeated Frank Martin via eighth-round knockout on June 15 in a fight that went all the way to KO. Martin narrowly defeated Harutyunyan (13-1, 7 KOs) last year, defeating him by unanimous decision in 12 rounds on July 15, 2023.

Indigent choice of opponent

Shakur might have doubts about that, thinking fans would look at his fight with Harutyunyan as a measure of Tank Davis’ skills.

Die-hard boxing fans who saw the Martin-Harutyunyan fight have already formed an opinion about Shakur, who they think is a penniless choice of opponent, considering Artem lost to a guy who Tank knocked out in the eighth round.

Shakur’s only chance to impress the fans is to show courage, step into the penalty box and defeat Harutyunyan in a knockout victory. Anything less will be seen as a loss for Shakur in terms of his popularity, which will plummet.

“I think that’s a great metric. Because Tank fought Frank Martin and I fought Artem, we’re fighting the same level of opponents, damn close, because they [Martin & Harutyunyan] “We fought each other and we saw that they were on the same level,” Shakur Stevenson said MillCity Boxingfeeling that his opponent on Saturday night, Artem Harutyunyan, is a fighter of a similar skill level to Gervonta “Tank” Davis’ last challenger, Martin.

Harutyunyan is not a good point of reference for fans who compare Shakur to Tank Davis, because the fight with the guy looks terrible, especially considering he lost to Martin.

If Shakur wanted to impress the fans, he should have given Edwin De Los Santos a rematch because he could prove to the fans that he is capable of doing well against him while being 100 percent fit.

“Now you can evaluate our performances and get the fans a little excited,” Shakur said, putting a positive spin on his decision to fight Harutyunyan, who lost to Frank Martin.

Fans have already decided that Shakur is frail for choosing Harutyunyan as his opponent. The only way he can come out on top is by knocking him out on Saturday night.

Unfortunately, the chances of Shakur doing that are virtually zero. He fights too scared and won’t dare stand in the pocket to let go of his hands, even against a non-puncher like Harutyunyan.

Shakur wants to change his image

“I want to show everyone who I am. I think a lot of people have forgotten who I am as a fighter after one fight. [Edwin De Los Santos]“- Shakur said when asked what he would like to show the fans in his fight with the recently defeated 33-year-old Harutyunyan on Saturday.

“I don’t have consistent moments where I shine and look good, and then one night I have a bad day and everybody just hangs on to that,” Shakur said.

Unfortunately, Shakur’s fight with Edwin De Los Santos wasn’t the first time he’d been in a bad fight. He’d done the same thing in those fights:

-Joet Gonzalez
– Jeremiah Nakathilia
-Oscar Valdez
– Robson Conceição
– Jamel Herring
-Christopher Diaz

The odd duck in the professional ranks

Fans don’t often mention Shakur’s previous fights, but they weren’t very engaging to watch. Shakur used the same retreating style in the De Los Santos fight and made sure to rarely get hit.

While that’s great news for fans who enjoy watching defensive work, it wasn’t exactly stimulating. Shakur hasn’t changed his fighting style since his amateur days and fights the same way.

It doesn’t fit the professional game that fans are used to. Shakur is an oddball in the pro ranks, and it takes a special kind of fan to enjoy his approach to fighting.

There simply aren’t enough fans like that to make Shakur a real must-see star. If you put Shakur in a time machine and transported him back to the Mayweather era in the early 2000s, Floyd’s fans would appreciate his fighting style. Unfortunately, Shakur doesn’t fit that era.

TWO things we know. We know, one, that Shakur Stevenson is an acquired taste, as brilliant as he is frustrating, and we know, two, that his days with Top Rank, his current promoter, are numbered because he is, well, an acquired taste.

In boxing, as we see, winning—and winning all the time—is often not enough. For promoters, at least, the most critical thing is how a boxer wins, not the fact that he wins. Moreover, for the fans, those whose tastes ultimately dictate the promoter’s, it is imperative that a boxer be more than just adept at winning, regardless of the entertainment costs.

In the case of Stevenson, a 27-year-old from Newark, Up-to-date Jersey, there has long been a desire on the part of both promoter and fans for him to provide entertainment along with excellence. That those two things, entertainment and excellence, rarely coexist in a sport like boxing has no bearing on the demands of his audience and his paymasters, it seems.

That’s why this Saturday (July 6) he will once again be expected to not only win over Artem Harutyunyan, but win in a way that will satisfy anyone who has criticized the way he’s won fights before. That is, with ease, dominance, and very little effort (at first glance).

Of course, Stevenson has the right to decide how to win his fights. If he wins, he will retain his WBC lightweight title, and he will also earn money and be able to fight names that, who knows, could elevate him in terms of status and marketability. That was the case with Floyd Mayweather, another controversial fighter who wasn’t winning his fights “properly,” long before Stevenson came along. In Mayweather’s case, what really got things moving, taking him from “Pretty Boy” to “Money,” was the influence of opponents like Arturo Gatti and Oscar De La Hoya, both of whom were the perfect complements to a boxer whose goal was always to win, not to entertain the crowd.

For Stevenson, 21-0 (10), something similar could happen in the future. After all, he’s surrounded by big-name fighters, including Gervonta Davis, Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia. Any one of that trio could work as Stevenson’s dance partner, and there’s a good chance the threat they pose would be enough to bring out the best in Stevenson and prove to people that he’s a champion worth investing in.

There seems to be some hesitation on that front at the moment. Even his own promoter, Top Rank, seems to be hesitant and unsure about the prospect of retaining Stevenson’s services beyond his next fight (the last under his current contract with them). If they don’t, Stevenson will naturally become a free agent, at which point a number of suitors will emerge and he will have the opportunity to find a home elsewhere.

That seems like the most likely scenario at this point. In fact, Stevenson has already claimed that Top Rank have essentially told him to “go see the market” before coming back to them, suggesting that potential suitors will have the same reservations about Stevenson’s box office appeal as Top Rank.

That may be true, but it’s clear that whether it’s true or not, the relationship between Stevenson and Top Rank is fractured, broken. Ever since they gave George Kambosos the title fight with Vasiliy Lomachenko (which Stevenson had once so desperately wanted), Stevenson has clearly felt disrespected, overlooked, and undervalued by them. He’s accepted that there was nothing he could do about the situation, but he’ll know that he’s fully responsible and in control of his reputation and appeal to his fans. That’s why a fight like this, another one with Artem Harutyunyan, is so critical, both for the present (keeping his title) and the future (earning lucrative opportunities). Beating Harutyunyan on Saturday night is critical, yes, but it’s not enough. But that won’t be enough because of the nature of the fight — no one asked for it — and it won’t be enough because Shakur Stevenson, now more than ever, is in a store window, begging passersby to stop long enough to appreciate what he’s selling.