Lightweight William Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) overcame a surprise fourth-round bout to defeat Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) by a 10-round split decision to win the interim WBC 135-lb title on Saturday night at The Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Farmer, 34, caught Zepeda with a left hand in the fourth round that knocked him to the canvas. The punch caught Zepeda off guard as he attacked, and he never saw it. That was the highlight of the fight for Farmer, who was outworked in every round by Zepeda.
The neglected Zepeda bodywork
The judges were impressed by the hard, clean head shots that Farmer occasionally landed on Zepeda, but the rounds were all dominated by the Mexican fighter. Even in the fourth, which was Farmer’s best round, Zepeda landed him by a wide margin, hitting him with body shots.
The judges ignored Zepeda’s bodywork, so they scored the fight the closest it would have been. Zepeda landed more than twice as many body shots as Farmer and connected with more power shots.
After Zepeda was knocked down in the fourth, he turned the heat on Farmer, throwing non-stop punches and making him survive. Most of the last six rounds of the contest involved Farmer clinching to stymie Zepeda’s offense because he was working on the body and head. You can see the fight that was taken from Farmer by the storm of shots that Zepeda hit him.
The judges scored:
– 95-94: Zepeda
– 95-94: Zepeda
– 95-94: Farmer.
The farmer was bitter after the fight, saying, “The knockdown finished it for me.” That knockdown from Farmer didn’t negate how Zepeda blew him away in every round of the fight. Again, the judges didn’t give Zepeda credit for the body shots he hit Farmer with, and they didn’t even notice that Tevin was holding down often.
The referee, Harvey Dock, should have penalized the excessive holding because it had affected the flow of the fight. It was not an occasional holding. This was non-stop.
Final Punch Statistics
William Zepeda connected on 259 of 778 shots for 33.3%.
Tevin Farmer connected on 193 of 587 shots for 32.9%.
In the last three rounds, Farmer’s body language looked like that of a tired fighter, as he was worn out by the pace that Zepeda had forced upon him. He couldn’t hold it long as Zepeda was fighting out of the clinches and landing short body punches that wore the American down more.
With the win, Zepeda will challenge the next WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson on February 22nd in Riyadh. Of course, Shakur will need to make it through training camp without suffering a concussion with his surgically repaired right hand.
Zepeda throws punches non-stop. I’ve never fought a pressure fighter in the pros that doesn’t stop the puncher, This was fun!
— Shakur Stevenson (@ShakurStevenson) November 16, 2024
