David Stevens stopped Sean Hemphill in the final seconds of a scheduled eight-round match between promising 168-pound athletes Friday night in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
The official stoppage time is 2:58.
Stevens (12-0.9 KOs) and Hemphill (14-1, 8 KOs) engaged in a competitive back-and-forth fight that was likely to erupt as the match drew to a close.
CompuBox stats support that view, as Hemphill has a 90-79 percentage of total punch landing.
However, the umpires clearly believed Stevens made cleaner shots as all three of them had Stevens leading 68-65 – five draws two – after seven innings.
None of that matters in the end. In the final seconds, Hemphill, his back in a corner, was injured by a left-right combination and then collapsed under a series of subsequent blows.
He was able to get up but went down again under another impact, stopping the match with just two seconds remaining.
Stevens, 22 from nearby Reading, has taken an important step towards becoming a legitimate opponent. He now has three knockouts.
Hemphill, 27 years old from New Orleans, will have to regroup.
In a co-ed event, lightweight prospect Atif Oberlton of Philadelphia (8-0.6 KOs) beat Russia’s Artem Brusov (12-1, 11 KOs) by a unanimous decision in an eight-round match .
