HIGHLY TOUTED: Can Stevenson live up to the hype?
Photo: ACTION IMAGES/ANDREW COULDRIDGE
ONE of boxing’s time-honoured traditions is for a star amateur to build steadily before being pitched into a big test. Once that might have been for a minor belt, but now they’re for world titles. Thus it is that Shakur Stevenson, brilliant young silver medallist for the USA at the 2016 Rio Olympics, takes professional experience of just 12 bouts (all wins, seven early) into a fight on Saturday (October 26) for the vacant WBO featherweight championship, relinquished by Oscar Valdez, who moved up to super-feather.