Shakur Stevenson had to go down the list of highly ranked WBC opponents as one-by-one everyone was turning him down until he came across undefeated Japanese contender Shuichiro Yoshino as the two appear to be heavily rumored to fight on April 8 in a main event broadcast on ESPN, as reported by Keith Idec of BoxingScene.com.
“I think that we gotta rate him with his performance with Nakatani, being that Nakatani fought Teofimo, went 12 rounds,” Stevenson said when speaking to Barak Bess and Akin Reyes of The DAZN Boxing Show. “I think he lost on a majority decision. I may be wrong – I don’t remember. But then [Nakatani] fought Lomachenko. He ain’t do too good with Lomachenko, but he end up getting stopped later on in the fight[SIC].”
Stevenson will be fighting for the first time at the lightweight division, which has a limit of 135 lbs. Stevenson is already a two-weight world champion collecting belts at 126 lbs and 130 lbs. A win over Yoshino would make him the mandatory challenger for Devin Haney’s WBC lightweight world title.
“And then [Nakatani] fought Yoshino, and [Yoshino] stopped him faster than anybody. And he actually really knocked him out or something like that. So, we know he got power. We know he’s tough. And for him to beat that dude [Nakatani] – and he beat Ito – it let us know that he solid.”
This will be the U.S. debut for Yoshino.
