Shakur Stevenson (24-0, 11 KOs) promised to hold his ground and deliver an exciting performance. The only thing he wasn't able to do against William Zepeda (33-1, 27 KOs) was score a knockout, but the WBC lightweight champion put together a boxing clinic to retain his title with a unanimous decision at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York.
Two scorecards favored Stevenson 118-110 and one judge had it 119-109.
Stevenson held his ground throughout the 12-round affair, allowing Zepeda to unload a high volume of punches and catching a majority of them on the arms and shoulders. But instead of circling away, Stevenson used a jab to the body, uppercuts and beautiful combination punching that tormented Zepeda. Zepeda did manage to land a hard right hand in the third that appeared to rock Stevenson, but outside of that, there was little to nothing of note that troubled the champion.
Zepeda was undeterred and relentless with his punch output, which allowed Stevenson plenty of windows to counter and punch through. By the middle to late rounds, Zepeda slowed down just enough for Stevenson to start leading the action with hooks to the head and body. Although Zepeda was never badly hurt, he was severely outgunned by the extraordinarily accurate product of Newark, New Jersey.
Stevenson's performance proved that he's undoubtedly main event material and can be extremely exciting when deemed necessary. He found it necessary to prove a point tonight and did exactly that with a one-sided drubbing of a man who was thought to give him a challenge.
That fight was followed by the main event between Edgar Berlanga and Hamzah Sheeraz, and it was Sheeraz's night, as he dropped Berlanga twice in Round 4 before finishing him early in Round 5.
Sheeraz (22-0-1, 18 KOs) was moving up in weight to face Berlanga. He was carrying a 15-fight KO streak before his fight against WBC middleweight champ Carlos Adames ended in a split draw in February. Now he's back on the KO track.
Berlanga (23-2, 18 KOs) started his career with 16 consecutive wins by KO in the first round but has only two stoppage victories in his past eight fights. His only previous loss was a unanimous decision to Canelo Alvarez last September.
Here are the results and round-by-round analysis from throughout the main card.