There is no place like Newark for Shakur Stevenson. The WBC lightweight world champion defended his crown in front of the hometown faithful with a unanimous decision over Artem Harutyunyan on Saturday evening at Prudential Center by scores of 119-109, 118-110, and 116-112.
Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs) never was threatened by his Armenian-born, German-based challenger, who entered the fight coming off a nearly yearlong layoff. Harutyunyan (12-2, 7 KOs) was hurt with body shots on multiple occasions, and while Stevenson fought on his front foot for much of the fight’s second half, he was unable to finish off his stubborn foe.
“It’s kind of hard to prove it if you don’t have a fighter who wants to fight back. He’s just trying to make sure he survives. He’s a good fighter. He’s tough. He’s strong. I would’ve wanted him to try a little harder, so that way it could be a more fun fight,” Stevenson said. “I have to cut off the ring a bit more. He’d go one way and then go the other way, so I gotta go back in the gym and work on cutting off the gym.”
Harutyunyan said, “Of course it was fun. Boxing is not a game. You have to fight. You get hit and have to hit back. It’s normal.”
Lightweight contender Keyshawn Davis overcame the persistent pressure of Miguel Madueno and a plethora of roughhouse tactics, grinding out a unanimous decision to improve his record to 11-0.
Davis, the Olympic silver medal star from Norfolk, Virginia, kept calm and used his well-timed counter shots to triumph by scores of 99-91 3x. The two tussled after round six ended, and in the seventh, Madueno (31-3, 28 KOs) lifted Davis off the canvas in a maneuver that would make a WWE wrestler proud.
Davis found his offensive groove in the ninth and 10th rounds and outlanded Madueno at a more than 3-to-1 clip.
“He’s a rough type of a guy, a real physical type of guy,” Davis said. “We were doing a lot of rough tactics in there, just trying to get under each other’s skin. We were both tough in there, and neither of our wills got broke.”
