Easy Contender win for American Stevens

American boxer Rashid Stevens made a successful start to his professional boxing career last Wednesday night at the Chinese Benevolent Association auditorium when he scored an easy victory over Jamaica's Camion Goldson in the penultimate round of the preliminaries of the Wray and Nephew Contender 2016 competition.

Judges Lindell Allen and Peter Richards voted 49-46 for Stevens, while judge Owen Nelson scored it 50-45.

Stevens was the second boxer from the USA team to make it to the next round and joins Demarcus 'Chop Chop' Corley in the mix. Boxers from the Caribbean team have won the other five places in the quarter finals that have been competed for to date. The preliminaries will end next week.

Stevens came to fight, but Goldson seemed overwhelmed by the occasion because he, too, was making his professional debut. He forgot that to win a fight, the most important thing is to score points with punches to the target area. He did not do so enough and therefore lost the fight.

Stevens started out quickly and showed good ring sense. Fighting from a south-paw stance, he moved a lot and scored with flurries to body and head. He made it difficult for Goldson to land any punches, and the Jamaican was not creative enough to find a way in.

In the second round, Goldson was able to shorten the range and landed some good shots to the body of his opponent. There were some good exchanges in this round, and Goldson finished in a very positive way to take the honours. It turned out to be the only round that he would win.

By the third round, a very confident and poised Stevens took control of the fight and scored with quick flurries to the head and body. His combinations were good, and Goldson just could not manage to launch a sustained attack.

Stevens kept building momentum and cruised through the next two rounds comfortably as a somewhat bewildered Goldson could simply find no answers. It turned out to be as one-sided affair as the scores showed.

After next week's bout, the boxers will be seeded and the top four will select their opponents by using a draw. There should be some interesting matches in the next round as the boxers fight for the places that will earn them the major prize money.

The winner will take home the Contender 2016 title and $2 million, the runner-up $500,000, third place $250,000, and fourth place $200,000.