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ESPN Staff Writer- Michael Rothstein, based in Atlanta, is a reporter on ESPN's investigative and enterprise team. You can follow him via Twitter @MikeRothstein.
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ESPN Staff Writer- Ben Baby covers the Cincinnati Bengals for ESPN. He joined the company in July 2019. Prior to ESPN, he worked for various newspapers in Texas, most recently at The Dallas Morning News where he covered college sports. He provides daily coverage of the Bengals for ESPN.com, while making appearances on SportsCenter, ESPN's NFL shows and ESPN Radio programs. A native of Grapevine, Texas, he graduated from the University of North Texas with a bachelor's degree in journalism. He is an adjunct journalism professor at Southern Methodist University and a member of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).
After winning titles at featherweight and junior lightweight, Shakur Stevenson moved up once again, this time to face Shuichiro Yoshino in a 12-round WBC lightweight title eliminator in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday. Stevenson finished Yoshino in the sixth round of a one-sided bout to become the mandatory challenger to the WBC lightweight title.
Stevenson (20-0, 10 KOs) was stripped of his WBC and WBO junior lightweight belts after missing weight ahead of his fight against Robson Conceicao in September. Stevenson defeated Conceicao by unanimous decision and moved up to lightweight, a division dominated by undisputed champion Devin Haney.
Also on Saturday, Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez defeated Cristian Gonzalez to win the vacant WBO flyweight title in the main event of a DAZN card at the Boeing Center at Tech Port in San Antonio, Texas.
After defending the WBC junior bantamweight title twice, including a unanimous decision victory over Israel Gonzalez in September, Rodriguez (17-0, 11 KOs) moved down one division to fight for the vacant WBO flyweight title and achieved his goal.
Michael Rothstein and Ben Baby recapped all the action from both fight cards.
