By Jimmy James: Mexican star William Zepeda will face unranked boxer Tevin Farmer on November 16th in Saudi Arabia for no reason whatsoever other than to keep his undefeated record intact. Nobody asked Zepeda to fight Giovanni Cabrera before, and nobody asked Zepeda to fight Farmer now.
Farmer is out of his prime and won’t pose any serious challenges to Zepeda’s style, who has fought nothing but tomato cans along the way and avoided tough fights with the exception of Joseph Diaz Jr.
Zepeda could have fought Lucas Bahdi, Andy Cruz, Frank Martin, Kid Austin, Edwin De Los Santos, Keyshawn Davis, Shakur Stevenson, Gustavo Lemos among other dangerous boxers in his division. Instead, he and his team waited for boxers like Keyshawn Lemos to fight, so Zepeda could “breathe hard” for another day by choosing the worst option available.
Zepeda doesn’t want to take on 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 mean the end of Jay Panda’s training career to lose to an unknown, dangerous opponent like Badhi, who had just beaten American prospect Ashton Sylve via KO.
If Steve Claggett was as protected as Zepeda, he would have become an overnight superstar in Mexico. Claggett and Zepeda fight almost identically with the same boxing style. I’d bet my house that the Canadian even beats the breakout Zepeda for a fight-of-the-year contest.
There’s a reason Zepeda continues to elude top opponents in his division. He wants to trade money for a fighter like Gervonta Davis and then disappear from the public eye to then become a socialite or maybe a gatekeeper like Claggett.
Robert Garcia revealed in an interview that Zepeda turned down 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 which his team rejected!
Turki Al-Sheikh tried several times to cut a deal with Oscar De LaHoya, but Zepeda’s team knew they weren’t ready to face an opponent like Stevenson, Gervonta Davis or Vasyl Lomachenko.
Zepeda became another Canelo Alvarez opponent left and right. Golden Boy is paradise for ducks who don’t want to lose their undefeated record against tough opponents, even if it means destroying their entire careers fighting senior citizens and janitors for a chance at a money fight. The current state of boxing is sad and terrible.
