Shakur Stevenson ready to fight again as boxing returns

WBO featherweight champion Shakur Stevenson was ready to make his first title defense against Miguel Marriaga on March 14 at New York’s Madison Square Garden — and advance his billing as perhaps boxing’s best young fighter.

The coronavirus pandemic had something else in store, though. A cancellation.

“To find out that I wasn’t getting paid, that kind of made me mad,” Stevenson said. “To find out that I wasn’t fighting made me mad because I felt like I put a lot of work in, I felt like I was going to perform really good. I was mad at that.”

Not anymore.

The 22-year-old Stevenson (13-0, seven knockouts) waited out the virus’s restrictions and will showcase his precocious skills Tuesday at super featherweight against Felix Caraballo (13-1-2, 9 KOs) at the MGM Grand.

He won’t be defending his title, and fans won’t be in attendance, but Stevenson nonetheless is eager to headline the first televised boxing card since March 13.

The broadcast begins at 4 p.m. on ESPN.

“Shakur is — I said it when we did our first fight — a future star in the sport of boxing, a future superstar,” said his promoter, Top Rank chairman Bob Arum. “I just think he’s a rare, rare talent, and I think that he’s a young man who’s growing in size and so I think 130 pounds will be a brief stop in his career because he’s growing into a welterweight and maybe even a junior middleweight.”

Stevenson, who hails from Newark, New Jersey, has been building in profile since 2015, when he qualified for the American Olympic boxing team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janiero. He won a silver medal in the bantamweight division and signed with Top Rank in February 2017, winning all 13 of his fights by blending speed and agility with precision, skill and technique.

He beat Joet Gonzalez in October by unanimous decision in Reno to win the WBO belt.

Arum said Stevenson reminds him of undefeated boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr., whom Top Rank promoted for more than a decade.

“Mayweather had those kind of skills coming up, and we promoted Floyd for over 10 years,” Arum said. “They’re both technical masters. I think Shakur is a better offensive fighter. We’ll have to see.”

Stevenson said he took about a month off from training after the cancellation of his fight against Marriaga. He resumed his preparations without a hitch and said he feels good at 130 pounds, a weight class in which he hopes to eventually become a world titlist.

But first up is Caraballo, a 33-year-old from Puerto Rico who accepted the fight late last month. And for whom Stevenson has seemingly little regard.

“I watched like one round. I see everything I needed to see in that one round, and I see a lot of holding in his game, so I’m going to expose it,” Stevenson said. “He’s nowhere near on my level.”

Contact reporter Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.