In today’s announced Latino Night in Riyadh Season, William Zepeda will face former super featherweight champion Tevin Farmer in a ten round fight on November 16th at The Venue in Riyadh.
The two fighters will be fighting on the undercard of the cruiserweight unification match between champions Chris Billian Smith and Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez.
Zepeda is taking heat from boxing fans on social media for not fighting WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson on October 12th. He reportedly couldn’t take the fight with Shakur because his wife was having a baby, yet he’s fighting just a month later on November 16th against Farmer. Fans see this move as a duck by Zepeda.
If Zepeda is not interested in fighting Shakur, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn will have to make other plans for February 2025, the month he’d hoped to make the Shakur-Zepeda fight.
Interestingly, Zepeda (31-0, 27 KOs) and Farmer (33-6-1, 8 KOs) aren’t the Chief support bout on the card. Golden Boy has saved that slot for a fight between former WBC and WBO light welterweight champion Jose Ramirez (29-1, 18 KOs) and Arnold Barboza Jr. (30-0, 11 KOs).
Zepeda appears to have more potential in his career than the 32-year-old Ramirez, who has done very little since losing his two titles to Josh Taylor by a 12-round unanimous decision three years ago on May 22, 2021.
Ramirez has fought three times since, beating the faded Jose Pedraza, Richard Commey, 37, and Rances Barthelemy. It doesn’t look like Ramirez is going to be able to capture another belt before retiring because he’s not moving his career along the way an aging former champion should be after losing their titles.
Light welterweight contender, Arnold Barboza Jr. should fight Irish fighter Sean McComb in a rematch to clear up the controversy over his 10-round split decision win earlier this year on April 20th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Many boxing fans had McComb winning that fight and felt it was a robbery.
Complete card
– Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez vs Chris Billam-Smith
– Jose Ramirez vs Arnold Barboza
– William Zepeda vs Tevin Farmer
– Oscar Collazo vs Edwin Hernandez
– Oscar Duarte vs Kenneth Sims Jr
