Stevenson beats De Los Santos in uneventful fight to win 3rd title

Shakur Stevenson became a world champion in a third weight class Thursday night, but his underwhelming performance against Edwin De Los Santos will go down as the story of the fight.

Stevenson defeated De Los Santos via unanimous decision (115-113, 116-112, 116-112) to capture the vacant WBC lightweight title in a Top Rank on ESPN main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

The 26-year-old made his second appearance at lightweight after moving up to the division in April. Stevenson previously held belts at featherweight and junior lightweight.

The WBC lightweight title was vacated by Devin Haney after the now-unified champion opted to challenge Regis Prograis for the WBC super lightweight belt instead of defending his own crown against the No. 1-ranked Stevenson.

Stevenson and De Los Santos both refused to open up with punches for almost the entire 12-round bout. Stevenson controlled the slow pace by landing occasional jabs. The new champion started to press the action in Round 7, walking De Los Santos down and making him miss a lot of shots. However, the last few rounds passed by uneventfully.

"I had a bad performance," Stevenson said postfight, according to talkSPORT's Michael Benson. "I wasn't feeling too good. ... No excuses. If I'm feeling like this, I'm gonna make sure I box and get a victory."

Neither fighter landed more than nine punches in any of the 12 rounds, with Stevenson edging De Los Santos by a margin of 65-40 in the final tally. Stevenson landed 19 power punches and De Los Santos connected on just 14.

Several members of the boxing media criticized the fight afterward on social media:

With the victory, Stevenson, one of the top pound-for-pound boxers in the world, moves to 21-0 as a professional. The New Jersey native finished Shuichiro Yoshino by TKO in his lightweight debut this past spring. Prior to his lightweight reign, Stevenson held the WBO featherweight title and the WBO and WBC super featherweight belts.

De Los Santos, who hails from the Dominican Republic, competed in his first-ever world title bout. The 24-year-old falls to a career 16-2.