Featherweight contender Shakur Stevenson is coming back to his hometown of Newark, New Jersey for his next fight.
Stevenson will face Hairon Socarras on July 13 at the Prudential Center on a Top Rank card that will be broadcast on an ESPN platform. The fight, which will be officially announced at a press conference on June 10, will mark Stevenson's first in Newark since turning pro back in 2017.
Stevenson, a former Olympic silver medalist from the 2016 Olympics, turned heads with a dominant performance against former word title challenger Christopher Diaz on April 20 as part of the pay-per-view card for Terence Crawford's WBO welterweight title defense against Amir Khan. Despite only having 11 fights as a pro, the unbeaten Stevenson has already emerged as a rising featherweight contender.
The 21-year-old Stevenson is also the current IBF Intercontinental and NABO featherweight champion and is ranked in the top five at 126 pounds by the WBA, WBO and IBF. Stevenson was recently taken out of the WBC rankings for failing to enroll in the Clean Boxing Program, making him ineligible to fight for a WBC world title.
Socarras is a 26-year-old boxer from Cuba who has been fighting professionally since 2011. Socarras is unbeaten as a pro, coming into the fight with a 22-0-3 record. This would be Socarras' third fight of 2019 after coming out on top in his first two fights this year. He last fought on May 10 in Hollywood, Florida, scoring a fifth-round stoppage win over Jesus Martinez and extending his win streak to six fights.
