Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez has confirmed that William Zepeda has suffered a right hand injury and will not be able to challenge Shakur Stevenson for his WBC lightweight belt on February 22nd.
Gomez stated that they are trying to “reschedule“The Shakur fight because that’s what Zepeda wants next (32-0, 27 KOs). He beat Shakur-clone Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) on Saturday night in Riyadh, and now he wants the real .
Zepeda was seen walking with his right hand embers since the fight with Farmer on Saturday night. This is not a fake thing where a fighter ducks. Zepeda wouldn’t be wearing the brace if he wasn’t injured because he’s not the type to put up a fight, especially against a light defensive tackle like Shakur.
“No, Zepeda suffered an injury. So, he hurt his hand. We are trying to reschedule this, but it is the fight that Zepeda wants,” said Eric Gomez to ESNEWS about William Zepeda who suffered an injury and will not be able to fight Shakur Stevenson on February 22.
During the fight, you could see that Zepeda’s right hand was not at full strength, perhaps injured by the body shots he had hit the 34-year-old Farmer.
It is difficult to identify when the injury occurred in the fight. However, the number of punches to the body from Zepeda seemed to increase in the second half of the fight, which indicates that he is focusing on the floor after suffering the injury. It is easier for fighters to throw to the body than to the head when they have a hand injury.
Zepeda beat Farmer by the score:
– 95-94: Zepeda
– 95-95: Farmer
– 95-94: Zepeda
Farmer hit Zepeda with a left hand in the fourth round, but it was a flash job and not a situation where he would have hurt him. When Zepeda got back up, he continued to punish Farmer for the rest of the round and the rest of the fight.
I had it 9-1 in favor of Zepeda, but I factored in the body shots he was landing. The judges were only focusing on the pot shots Farmer was connecting on, and there weren’t enough of them to give him a 95-94 win.
Shakur will have to fight someone else next if he wants to stay busy while he waits out Zepeda’s hand injury to the head. He should fight one of these contenders next:
Andy Cruz
Edwin Delos Santos
Floyd Schofield
Abdullah Mason
If Shakur wanted to show the world that he’s not afraid to fight any of the killers at 135, he’ll fight one of those guys while waiting for Zepeda’s hand injury. But given the risk involved and the high probability that he will return to another show where he is kicked out of the arena, he will not have the chance to fight with one of these guys.
