Tevin Farmer fans are angry, I believe it was stolen in his 10-round split decision against lightweight contender William Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) on Saturday night in their fight at The Venue in Riyadh.
Farmer’s followers kept mentioning his fourth round flash knockdown of Zepeda, using it as a reason why he deserved the win. Not to mention that was the only round that Farmer actually looked like winning, and he was worked to the body and head by Zepeda’s volume punching.
If the only thing a person saw was the short clip of the knockdown flash on social media that went viral, it’s understandable why they think he was robbed and deserved the win over Zepeda. That is not the reality of the struggle. Zepeda dominated every time with the volume and had farmers holding for survival purposes.
Zepeda’s downtrodden farmer
Farmer fans need to let this little statistic sink in. Zepeda launched 1087 punches and landed 527 for a 48% connection rate. Not only did Zepeda throw a large number of punches in each round, but he literally couldn’t miss.
What made it even more significant was that he was throwing power shots, many of them to Farmer’s body, and that’s why the Philadelphia native had nothing left by the sixth round.
The farmer’s sea lamprey strategy fails
Those body shots from Zepeda were Farmer’s kryptonite, weakening him to the point where he held him like a sea lamprey hooked on a fish. The farmer did the best he could with his pot shots, but he couldn’t match the work rate or power of Zepeda’s shots. It’s unclear if Farmer’s team’s game plan for the fight was to hit relentlessly to stifle Zepeda’s offense or if he came up with it on his own. Either way, it was a failure.
If Farmer wanted to win, he needed to throw punches because it was obvious he couldn’t handle the heat Zepeda was putting on him.
That’s why he lost. If the judges scored rounds based on clinching, Farmer would have won because he outpointed Zepeda in every round in that category.
It’s not the end of the world for Zepeda. He can bounce back from this loss if he goes back to super featherweight, but it’s obvious at this point that he’s too weak to compete at lightweight. If he stays in the weight class, he will continue to be used as a B-side opponent to help prepare fighters for Shakur Stevenson, which is why he got the gig against Zepeda. He’s a knockoff version of Shakur, but braver, more power and not a runner.
De La Hoya In Awe of Zepeda
“I had a point for William. He had the relentless style; he kept throwing punches. He lands punches like no other fighter,” Oscar De La Hoya told iFL TV about William Zepeda after his victory over Tevin Farmer at the Latin Night on Saturday in Riyadh.
“Tevin is a great fighter. He told me after the fight, ‘Look, I want to come back and fight for you. Absolutely, Tevin Farmer will be champion one day.
If Farmer is going to be a champion “one day,” he better be quick because he’ll be 35 in July, and he’s lost his last two fights. De La Hoya needs to convince Farmer to go back to 130 or drop even further to 126 if he can make the weight.
Farmer will never be a world champion at 135 because he can’t punch hard enough, as we saw against Zepeda. He has to fight his way to a world title.
Now that fight is over, Zepeda is ready to challenge WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson and blow him away with punches like he did against Farmer. Shakur’s work rate is abysmal compared to Zepeda’s.
For example, in Shakur’s fight against Edwin De Los Santos last year on November 16, he threw only 297 fists and landed 81. Now, compare that to the 1087 punches Zepeda threw against Farmer. Zepeda landed 527 of those shots. See what I mean. It probably won’t end well for Shakur.
