Shakur Stevenson remains one of boxing’s bright young stars after 6 round TKO

Shakur Stevenson has been solidifying himself as one of boxing's biggest stars. His stardom reached a new peak Saturday after dominating Shuichiro Yoshino. The 25-year-old Stevenson made his lightweight debut and also earned the former featherweight and junior lightweight champion and a 135-pound title shot. Stevenson controlled the fight from the opening bell.

Stevenson dropped the Japanese contender in the second and fourth rounds before closing the show with a sixth-round technical knockout. Referee Allen Huggins stopped the action at 1:35 of the sixth round because Yoshino had taken a lot of punishment and hadn’t thrown many punches back at Stevenson. CompuBox saw Stevenson landing 50 percent of his total punches (123 of 245), and an outstanding 60 percent of his power shots (104 of 174), with Yoshino who threw more than Stevenson, 332 to 245 overall landed just 36 of 332 (11 percent) of his total punches, and only 14 percent (34 of 243) of his power shots.

The boxing landscape has gotten a whole lot more exciting with what fights potentially loom on the horizon. Stevenson (20-0, 10 KOs), who entered the ring as a 16-1 favorite, became the WBC’s mandatory challenger for Devin Haney or Vasiliy Lomachenko by beating Tokyo’s Yoshino (16-1, 12 KOs). Haney (29-0, 15 KOs) will defend his IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO lightweight titles against Ukraine’s Vasiliy Lomachenko (17-2, 11 KOs) in an ESPN Pay-Per-View main event May 20 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

However, it's questionable if Haney takes the fight. Haney has options to drop the belt and move up to 140 to challenge the winner of Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Ryan Garcia. No matter what Haney decides if he is the victor on May 20th will be huge for the sport of boxing. What is known on this night is that Shakur Stevenson star power can’t be denied