Shakur Stevenson believes he put on one of his more fan-friendly performances against Oscar Valdez.

The southpaw ace from Newark, New Jersey, unified a pair of 130-pound belts on Saturday night, April 30, with his dominant 12-round decision over Valdez at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Stevenson, known for his defensive acumen, is not normally mentioned in conversations about exciting prizefighters. Indeed, he has been heavily criticized in the past for being flat-out boring. But the 24-year-old recently said that he chose to stand his ground against Valdez, more often than in his previous outings, out of a desire to please fans. Stevenson was not hit with anything flush from Valdez, or ever troubled, but he did seemingly absorb more punches to the face than in any of his previous bouts.

“At the end of the day you gotta understand I’m a crowd pleaser too,” Stevenson said on The DAZN Boxing Show. “I gotta put on performances for the fans.

“I got hit, but it was only because of the fact I wasn’t going nowhere. From the beginning if you’re gonna be a superstar, you gotta kick your way through the door.”

Stevenson (18-0, 9 KOs) showed he has some starch in his punch, when he scored a knockdown of Valdez in the sixth round. Stevenson won handily on the scorecards: 117-110 and 118-109 twice.

The loss was a first for the hard-nosed Valdez (30-1, 23 KOs), a former titlist at featherweight, where Stevenson also once owned a belt.

“At the end of the day it’s not easy to stop someone like Valdez,” Stevenson said. “He’s got so much experience in the ring, numerous times with champions and all that, so it’s not easy to stop him.

"But at the end of the day I stood in front of him. I stood right there in front of him and gave him what he wanted. We sat there. He hit me a couple of times, but I hit him too.”