Tag: Miguel Marriaga

Shakur Stevenson wants to make statement even without spectators

Shakur Stevenson will make his first featherweight title defense against Miguel Marriaga on Saturday in front of empty seats.

The building will be empty. But Shakur Stevenson’s future is not.

Stevenson will make his first featherweight title defense against Miguel Marriaga on Saturday night at Hulu Theater at New York’s Madison Square Garden in front of empty seats because of the growing coronavirus threat.

Essentially, it’ll be a studio show for an ESPN audience. It’ll be different. It’ll be weird. Echoes instead of cheers, yet life and boxing careers move on. Nothing about Stevenson’s ambition changes, especially in a title defense that allows him to make a statement against Marriaga, a perennial title contender.

Before Stevenson (13-0, 7 KO) won his first 126-pound belt with a dominating decision over Joet Gonzalez last October in Reno, Nevada, he talked about 2020 as a year when he could begin to stake a claim on pound-for-pound contention.

“I want to be the king of boxing,’’ Stevenson, 22, told reporters this week on a promotional stop in his hometown of Newark.

He won’t necessarily do that against Marriaga (29-3, 25 KOs). Stevenson is heavily favored. He is expected to win. But he has his own expectations. He’ll measure himself more by how he does than what he does. He’s hoping for a sensational performance, one that won’t get a crowd rocking, yet will be YouTube worthy. Fans can’t be there, but Stevenson wants to deliver a victory memorable enough to replay and share.

Marriaga is 0-3 in title shots. He lost to Nicholas Walters in June 2015, Oscar Valdez Jr. in May 2017 and Vasiliy Lomachenko in August 2017. Lomachenko, No. 1 in Boxing Junkie’s pound-for-pound poll, destroyed Marriaga, knocking down the 33-year-old Colombian twice and forcing him to quit after the seventh round of a junior lightweight fight.

For Stevenson, Lomachenko’s performance is the standard, one he hopes to surpass. Do that and maybe he gets some consideration from some of those pound-for-pound polls.

More immediate is a possible title unification fight with U.K. featherweight Josh Warrington (30-0, 7 KOs). Stevenson hopes to face Warrington in May. That might be a little bit early, but nobody ever became king by waiting around.

Shakur Stevenson-Miguel Marriaga card will have no spectators

The card featuring Shakur Stevenson vs. Miguel Marriaga on Saturday in New York City will be conducted without fans in the stands.

The spread of coronavirus is having an increasingly significant effect on boxing.

The card featuring Shakur Stevenson’s featherweight title defense against Miguel Marriaga on Saturday will be conducted without fans in the stands at Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, according to The Athletic.

Top Rank CEO Bob Arum said the event “goes on without the public.”
Arum said a second card, featuring featherweight prospect Michael Conlan on Tuesday at Hulu Theater, also will not have spectators.

Multiple boxing cards have been canceled in Europe and Canada, according to reports. An Olympic qualifier involving American boxers was called off. And Top Rank already moved a card featuring 140-pound titleholder Jose Ramirez vs. Viktor Postol from China – where the virus originated – to Fresno, Ramirez’s hometown.

Of course, the pandemic has affected other sports worldwide. In the U.S., the NBA suspended it’s season “until further notice” after one player, Rudy Gobert, tested positive for coronavirus. And the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be played without spectators.

Shakur Stevenson, Mick Conlan to headline March featherweight cards

Shakur Stevenson and Mick Conlan are scheduled to headline featherweight cards in March.

Featherweights will bring their own version of March Madness to New York.

First, Shakur Stevenson will make the first defense of his 126-pound title against veteran Colombian challenger Miguel Marriaga on March 14 at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater on ESPN.

Three days later, Irish featherweight Mick Conlan will be at Hulu Theater for his annual celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day against Belmar Preciado, also of Colombia.

The featherweight two-step, announced Tuesday by Top Rank, will begin with Stevenson (13-0, 7 KOs) in his first bout since scoring a unanimous decision over Joet Gonzalez on Oct. 26.

“We’ve been trying to make this fight with Miguel Marriaga for a long time now,” Stevenson said. “I wanted a strong opponent for my first title defense. He’s been in the ring with multiple world champions, and I am ready to prove that I am the best featherweight in the world. This is my fourth fight at Madison Square Garden, but my first as a world champion, and it will be my best performance yet.”

Marriaga (29-3, 25 KOs) has challenged for world titles three times, losing all three to Nicholas Walters, Oscar Valdez Jr. and Vasiliy Lomachenko. He has won his last four fights, all by stoppage.

“I always wanted this fight, and the time is right now that he’s a world champion,” Marriaga said. “He speaks often about how people are ducking him, but here I am. Colombia will have a new world champion March 14.”

Conlan (13-0, 7 KOs), who will make a fourth straight St Paddy’s Day appearance at Hulu, looms as a potential challenger for the Stevenson-Marriaga winner.

“I know how tough Preciado (20-2-1, 13 KOs) is, but this fight is a great test as I continue on my path towards becoming a world champion,’’ Conlan said.

On the March 14 card, former junior-featherweight champion Jessie Magdaleno (27-1, 18 KOs) will face unbeaten Sakaria Lukas (23-0, 16 KOs) of Namibia in a 10-round featherweight bout.

On the March 17 card, unbeaten Mikaela Mayer (12-0, 5 KOs) will take on Melissa Hernandez (23-7-3, 7 KOs), a former featherweight champ, in a junior lightweight bout.

Ruben Villa, former amateur star, fighting way into title mix

Former amateur star Ruben Villa hopes his fight against Alexei Collado on Friday on ShoBox is another step toward title contention.

Ruben Villa is introducing himself to fans as someone to watch. He’s a potential contender, a featherweight trying to fight his way into the title mix.

But Villa needs no introduction to a featherweight already with a title. Shakur Stevenson knows him, knows him well.

As an amateur, Villa went 2-2 against Stevenson, who faces Miguel Marriaga on March 14 at New York’s Madison Square Garden in the first defense of a 126-pound belt he won in a unanimous decision over Joet Gonzalez on Oct. 26.

“It was back in 2015 and 2016 before he went on to the (2016) Olympics and won a silver medal,’’ said Villa (17-0, 5 KOs), who hopes to add a victory to his credentials as a prospect Friday night against Cuban Alexei Collado (26-2, 23 KOs) on Showtime’s ShoBox at Hirsch Memorial Coliseum in Shreveport, Louisiana. “I knew then that I was fighting somebody special. I knew it wouldn’t take him long to win a world title.’’

Villa, of Salinas, California, says he continues to learn from his amateur experience against Stevenson, who at 22 is a couple of months younger than Villa.

“I like the way he counters, I like the way he boxes,’’ said Villa, who says he has been concentrating on improving his own counter punching in training for the dangerous Collada.

“Collado is a real strong aggressive guy,’’ said Villa, who also beat Devin Haney, a current lightweight champion, in the Junior Olympics in 2014. “He’s a veteran. I have to be cautious because of his power and play it very smart on our end.”

Villa hopes the Collado bout is the first of three in 2020.

“By the end of the year,” he said, “I’m hoping to fight my way into spot for a mandatory shot at a world title.’’

Emanuel Navarrete maintains his momentum, winning fifth fight of year

Moments after he scored a fourth-round stoppage of Francisco Horta on Saturday, Emanuel Navarrete was already thinking about next year,

Emanuel Navarrete continues to put busy back in the game, closing out one year with his fifth fight within 12 months on a furious pace that has taken him from anonymity to emerging stardom.

What’s next?

More of the same, says Navarrete, a junior featherweight who is as ambitious as he is inexhaustible.

Moments after he scored a fourth-round stoppage of Francisco Horta on Saturday night in Puebla, Mexico, Navarrete was already thinking about next year, a New Year on the calendar and an extension of the momentum he created for himself in 2019.

He won four-title defenses after his upset of Isaac Dogboe last Dec. 8 in New York. After taking the title from Dogboe, he fought once in spring, twice in summer and once in winter. He missed autumn, but maybe that’s one of his resolutions for 2020. He has as many fights in him as there are seasons.

“I want to continue improving,’’ Navarrete (30-1, 26 KOs) said after he overcame a slow start and overwhelmed Horta (20-3-1, 10 KOs), a fellow Mexican, with a blitz of punches from virtually every angle for a TKO victory at 2:09 of the fourth.

Options are plentiful.

Emanuel Navarrete’s stoppage of Francisco Horta was his fifth victory of the year. Zanfer Promotions

At 5-foot-7, the 24-year-old Navarrete has talked about moving up to featherweight. But he has also been mentioned as a possibility for Naoya Inoue, a pound-for-pound contender and a unified bantamweight champion after his decision over Nonito Donaire on Nov. 7 in Japan. The deal would be easy to make. Both are aligned with Top Rank, which signed Inoue last month.

Navarrete also has said he wants to unify the 122-pound title. That appears to be the immediate plan. Top Rank’s Bob Arum has talked about Rey Vargas and Daniel Roman, both belt-holders. Vargas is tied to Golden Boy Promotions. Roman has a deal with Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn.

“2020 will be even better,’’ Navarrete said.

Maybe even busier, too.

On the Navarrete-Horta undercard, Filipino left-hander Jerwin Ancajas (32-1-2, 22 KOs) continued his junior bantamweight reign, winning his eighth successive title defense with a sixth-round stoppage of Miguel Gonzalez (31-2, 8 KOs).

“I want to unify titles,” said Ancajas, who hopes for a shot at Juan Francisco Estrada in 2020.

In the opening bout on the ESPN+ telecast, featherweight and lightweight title challenger Miguel Marriaga (29-3, 24 KOs) of Colombia overcame some rocky moments in the early rounds for a sixth-round stoppage of Mexican Alfredo Meija (14-3-3, 5 KOs).