By: Hans Themistode
Shakur Stevenson began to lose patience as his duel with Oscar Valdez became increasingly unlikely.
Immediately after his 10th-round stoppage-time win over Jamel Herring, to claim his former 130-pound WBO title, Stevenson quickly turned his attention to Valdez and his WBC title. However, in the mind of Bob Arum, Stevenson’s promoter, he expressed his desire to compete between Stevenson and former WBC belt Miguel Berchelt. Meanwhile, Arum also pointed out that a match between Valdez and 126-weight WBO player Emanuel Navarrete, was already in his sights.
In the perfect world of Arum, the winners of those competitions would meet in a unified contest. While Valdez was open to the idea, Stevenson scoffed at prolonging the game against Valdez.
Despite Arum’s initial thoughts, Stevenson is now well on his way to his first unification.
As first reported by Dan Rafael, formerly of ESPN, both Team Valdez and Team Stevenson are close to reaching an agreement to unify the two 130-pound belts. Although the finish line is within reach, there are still some small details that need to be ironed. Currently, their competition is scheduled to take place on April 30, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Valdez, 31, has put together arguably the best year of his career in 2021. To start things off, Valdez entered the confrontation with the previously mentioned Berchelt as an underdog. significantly. Despite the odds, Valdez prevailed, beating the former heavyweight a total of three times before scoring a crunchy goal on his 10th goal.
Shortly after winning Berchelt’s WBC crown, Valdez made a close and somewhat controversial unanimous decision over Robson Conceicao.
If Stevenson succeeds in dethroning Valdez and becomes unified champion, the 24-year-old no longer wants to see any board-balanced list without his name near the top.
“My next opponent is a big surprise,” Stevenson said on his social media account. “Give me a pound for a pound, please.”
