By Jimmy James: Mexican star William Zepeda will face unranked boxer Tevin Farmer on November 16 in Saudi Arabia for no reason whatsoever other than to keep his undefeated record intact. No one asked Zepeda to fight against Giovanni Cabrera a fight before, and no one asked Zepeda to fight Farmer now.
Farmer is out of his prime and will pose no serious challenges to Zepeda’s style, who fought nothing but tomato cans along the way avoiding tough fights with the exception of Joseph Diaz Jr.
Zepeda could have fought against Lucas Bahdi, Andy Cruz, Frank Martin, Kid Austin, Edwin De Los Santos, Keyshawn Davis, Shakur Stevenson, Gustavo Lemos amongst other dangerous boxers in his division. He instead and his team waited for boxers like Keyshawn to take on Lemos, so Zepeda could “breathe hard” another day choosing the weakest option available.
Zepeda doesn’t want to take serious challenges because he doesn’t want to expose his terrible defense and poor footwork against boxers with better ring IQ and technique. It would spell the end of Jay Panda’s training career to lose against an unknown, dangerous opponent like Badhi, who just beat American prospect Ashton Sylve via KO.
If Steve Claggett had been as protected as Zepeda, he would have become a superstar in Mexico overnight. Claggett and Zepeda fight almost identically with the same boxing style. I would bet my house that the Canadian even beats the breaks out of Zepeda for a fight-of-the-year contest.
There is a reason why Zepeda keeps ducking prime rising opponents in his division. He wants to cash out against a fighter like Gervonta Davis and then disappear from the public eye to then become a journeyman or maybe a gatekeeper like Claggett.
Robert Garcia revealed in an interview that Zepeda rejected an offer to fight Raymond Muratalla. The Mexican was also offered a fight according to his trainer Panda for $1M to fight Stevenson about a year ago that his team rejected!
Turki Al-Sheikh tried multiple times to break a deal with Oscar De LaHoya, but Zepeda’s team knew they were not ready to face an opponent like Stevenson, Gervonta Davis, or Vasyl Lomachenko.
Zepeda has become another Canelo Alvarez ducking opponents left and right. Golden Boy is the paradise for ducks who don’t want to lose their undefeated record against tough opponents, even if it means to destroy their whole careers fighting senior citizens and janitors to have a shot at a money fight. The current state of boxing is sad and terrible.
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