Valdez vs Stevenson: Boxing pros react to Shakur Stevenson’s unification win over Oscar Valdez

Shakur Stevenson stayed undefeated and unified a pair of world title belts in one-sided fashion tonight, beating Oscar Valdez by unanimous decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Stevenson (18-0, 9 KO) won on scores of 117-110, 118-109, and 118-109, taking the WBC title from Valdez (30-1, 23 KO) to add to the WBO belt he won from Jamel Herring last October.

It was, in many ways, exactly the expected outcome for many prognosticators, right down to the fact that Stevenson’s dominance wasn’t always the most exciting thing to watch. But he did dominate, and that can’t be ignored.

CompuBox saw Stevenson landing 189 of 580 (32.6%) of his total punches, with a robust 53% of his power punches (158 of 298) landing on Valdez. On the other side of the ring, Valdez was credited for 110 of 508 (21.7%) landed overall, and 104 of 361 (28.8%) of his power punches.

Stevenson won the jab contest, 31-6, and out-landed Valdez to the body, too, by a count of 61-44.

The boxing world didn’t have quite as much to say about this one as they did Taylor vs Serrano, but it’s understandable because there just really wasn’t as much to say, not that the praise for Shakur was light by any means.

Some reactions from the pros: