Shakur Stevenson

Ash-Shakur Stevenson, born on June 28, 1997, in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is an American professional boxer who has made a name for himself in the boxing world. His amateur career was distinguished, most notably clinching a gold medal at the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games and the 2014 Sofia Youth and Junior World Boxing Championships in the flyweight division. Shakur also secured a silver medal in the bantamweight division at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, making him the highest-medaling male American boxer at the Olympic Games since 2004. Turning professional in 2017, Stevenson quickly ascended the ranks and held the ranking as the world’s best active super featherweight boxer by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and ESPN​.

Stevenson’s professional boxing career is adorned with several significant victories. Notably, he won the vacant IBF Inter-Continental and WBC Continental Americas featherweight titles in January 2019, and the WBO featherweight title in October 2019. In 2021, he clinched the vacant WBO interim super featherweight title, and later in October, he secured the WBO super featherweight title. In April 2022, Stevenson retained the WBO title and won the WBC and vacant The Ring super featherweight titles, even though he was stripped of his WBC and WBO titles later that year due to missing weight at the official weigh-ins. Despite this, he won his subsequent fight by unanimous decision. Stevenson then moved up to the lightweight division and in April 2023, he faced Shuichiro Yoshino, marking his first test within this new division​.

In December 2023, Shakur Stevenson not only clinched a title in a third weight class against Edwin De Los Santos but also delivered a performance where he reached double-digit connects in each of the 12 rounds. Stevenson aspires to become a three-division champion, eyeing the crown jewel in boxing - the illustrious green WBC title. The scorecards left no room for dispute, yet the aftermath of this bout holds the potential for superfights with formidable opponents like Teo Lopez, Gervontee Davis, Ryan Garcia, and Devin Haney. Stevenson celebrated as the most skillful fighter in boxing and simultaneously the most avoided, may face challenges in securing future fights following his dominant yet slickest slugfest. The aftermath may unfold as a series of monumental bouts, a testament to the true essence of a fighter seeking back-to-back-to-back challenges.

Shakur Stevenson is among the leaders of Compubox’s punches landed vs punches taken statistic. This makes him a living definition of the saying “hit and don’t get hit.” Stevenson is a southpaw primarily fighting out of the Philly shell defense which is unusual due to his lead hand being held low and leaving his head open for the lead hand of orthodox stance fighters. Yet he manages to get hit less than anyone else due to several tools in his arsenal. One is his elite lead hand control. He is constantly extending his lead hand to control his opponents. He can control what punches they can and cannot throw, he can use it to trap their hands, occupy their guards, or keep them at a distance. By controlling what punches his opponent can throw, he can easily anticipate the punches and avoid them.

The lead hand is as much of an offensive weapon as it is a defensive weapon. The lead hand control occupies his opponent's guards and even manipulates them to create openings for him to punch. Against orthodox fighters, he can extend his lead hand to invite a hand fight from his opponent. Once his opponent obliges, Shakur will leave him hanging and punch around the opening with a lead hook. Another signature technique of Shakur Stevenson is using his lead hand to pin his opponent’s guard to their head, then shoot his straight left hand to the exposed body.