LAS VEGAS – The disruptions Edwin De Los Santos experienced prior to his fight with William Foster III cost the Dominican southpaw.
De Los Santos contends that he has proven since Foster defeated him by split decision in January 2022 that he is the better fighter. The Brooklyn-based lightweight contender is 3-0 since he suffered that close loss to Foster in a fight Showtime televised as part of its “ShoBox: The New Generation” prospect series.
Winning those three fights, coupled with Frank Martin’s decision to withdraw, has led De Los Santos to the most meaningful fight of his career.
He’ll battle undefeated two-division champion Shakur Stevenson in a 12-round main event for the vacant WBC lightweight title Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena. ESPN will televise Stevenson-De Los Santos as the main event of a two-bout broadcast scheduled to start at 10:30 p.m. ET (7:30 p.m. PT).
The 26-year-old Stevenson (20-0, 10 KOs), a Newark, New Jersey native who is commonly considered one of the top pound-for-pound boxers in the sport, is listed by BetMGM sportsbook as a 14-1 favorite. De Los Santos (16-1, 14 KOs) is confident that he’ll pull off an upset, in part because his recently completed training camp went much smoother than when he fought Foster 22 months ago.
“In the William Foster fight, we had a problem in training camp,” De Los Santos told BoxingScene.com through a translator. “I know the potential that I have. And the night that he beat me, he beat me because of the problem we had.”
De Los Santos recalled that he had four trainers from the time he started training camp for the Foster fight to the time he entered the ring at Caribe Royale Orlando in Orlando, Florida.
“I had a problem with my manager, who didn’t really know how to administer things well,” De Los Santos said. “And in the span of less than one month I had four different trainers. … I didn’t shine like I’m used to doing.”
The 24-year-old De Los Santos accepted some of the blame for his subpar performance against Foster (16-1, 10 KOs, 1 NC), specifically that he was too focused on recording a knockout against an opponent who was undefeated at that time.
“Maybe I got a little overconfident, because I was confident in my power,” De Los Santos said. “I felt that I could knock him out.”
Judges Erik Larsen and Alex Levin scored Foster a 77-74 winner over De Los Santos, who won 77-74 according to judge Efrain Lebron. Referee Frank Gentile deducted a point from De Los Santos in the fourth round of that bout for repeatedly putting Foster in headlocks.
De Los Santos got off to a strong start against Foster, but he appeared fatigued during the second half of their eight-round bout.
De Los Santos returned to the ring only nine weeks after his loss to Foster. He knocked out Houston’s Luis Acosta (13-2, 12 KOs), who was undefeated entering their fight, in the second round of their March 2022 bout at Deadwood Mountain Grand in Deadwood, South Dakota.
De Los Santos has since knocked out another then-unbeaten prospect, Mexico’s Jose Valenzuela (12-2, 8 KOs), in the third round of a September 2022 fight at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
In his last fight, De Los Santos outboxed Joseph Adorno (18-3-2, 15 KOs), of Allentown, Pennsylvania, and won a 10-round unanimous decision July 8. Showtime televised that fight from Boardwalk Hall’s Adrian Phillips Theater in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Foster, of New Haven, Connecticut, lost for the first time as a professional November 4. Puerto Rican southpaw Henry Lebron (19-0, 10 KOs) won their 10-rounder by majority decision at Tahoe Blue Event Center in Stateline, Nevada.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.