William Zepeda’s trainer, Jay Najar, was surprised that WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson chose to fight #13 Joe Cordina on October 12th rather than face them in November.
Najar says they were unaware that Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) changed his mind about fighting the unbeaten #1-ranked 135-lb contender Zepeda (31-0, 27 KO), preferring instead to face the 32-year-old former IBF super featherweight champion Cordina on the undercard of Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Zepeda: The Dangerous Third Rail
What Najar doesn’t say is whether he suspects Shakur will avoid Zepeda in the first half of 2025 as well. The Mexican star is all wrong for the light-hitting defensive artist Shakur and could ruin his new promoter Eddie Hearn’s plans to match him against Gervonta Davis next summer.
If Shakur is being steered around the dangerous William Zepeda right now, it’s only obvious that he will be avoided like the plague in the first quarter of 2025.
Zepeda is the equivalent of the electrified third rail of a train system and highly dangerous for Shakur with his ambitions of a mega-fight against Tank Davis. The Mexican star, Zepeda, would chase Shakur down and reap havoc on him and his promoter Hearn’s dreams of a massive money fight against Tank Davis.
Shakur is reportedly being paid $5 million to headline the undercard portion of the Beterbiev-Bivol card live on DAZN PPV in his first fight for promoter Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing company. Hearn chose one of his own Matchroom fighters, Cordina, who is down in his luck after being destroyed in eight rounds by Anthony Cacace on May 18th and badly needs a pick-me-up right now.
Shakur’s Calculated Move
Some believe that Hearn’s choice of Cordina as Shakur’s opponent is a clever move to rebuild Stevenson and further his goal of making him a “global superstar,” even if he’s not for real. In other words, Hearn makes Shakur look better than he is by building a fake “global superstar” to help make a fight between him and Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis into a monster on PPV in 2025.
“William just had his baby yesterday; we knew that was coming, so we asked for November [to challenge WBC lightweight champion Shakur]. We didn’t know why [Shakur chose to fight Joe Cordina]. All of a sudden, he was fighting a different fighter. We were willing to fight in November.,” said Nakar to Thaboxingvoice.
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