Unbeaten #1 ranked lightweight contender William Zepeda will get his warm-up fight against Tevin Farmer in 17 Days on November 16th on Latino Night at The Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This is a dry run for the talented Zepeda (31-0, 27 KOs) before he faces the real thing, WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson, on February 22nd.
Farmer (33-6-1, 8 KOs) has a style similar to Shakur but is not quite as timid in running around the ring after the first hint of danger. The former IBF super featherweight champion Farmer is more willing to stand in the pocket and throw punches than Shakur, who has no heart for the one-on-one pocket fighting that Zepeda specializes in.
Can Farmer Keep Zepeda Off?
Tevin Farmer’s three-fight winning streak was snapped in his last fight, losing to highly ranked Raymond Muratalla by a close ten-round unanimous decision on July 13th. Farmer exposed the unbeaten Muratalla in that contest, making him look beat with his boxing skills.
However, it’s going to be a different story when Farmer gets in with Zepeda because he’s a much different type of fighter with an inside game, power, and a high work rate that makes him impossible to stop. He’s the perfect fighter to defeat a pure boxer like Farmer and Shakur.
Zepeda has looked outstanding lately, knocking out Giovanni Cabrera, Maxi Hughes, and Mercito Gesta early in those fights. What was impressive about those matches was how Zepeda started slowly and then came on like a train in the latter half of the second round.
Once Zepeda ramps up his offense, he’s unstoppable, and his opponents fight for survival. That’s what we’ll likely see from the 34-year-old Farmer, who has never fought like this before during his 13-year professional career.
Fighting a guy like Zepeda at this late stage is going to be a real problem for Farmer because he won’t be able to run. The Mexican talent is excellent at cutting off the ring on his prey.
Farmer has been saying that Zepeda won’t get to the Shakur fight because he plans on beating him on November 16th, but that sounds like wishful thinking. Zepeda will be like glue, sticking to him on the inside, throwing to the body, and making life difficult for him.
Fans are looking forward to seeing Zepeda face Shakur because the match is shown on PPV and has a lot of attention.
This will be Shakur’s first fight of his two-fight contract with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing, and he’s being primed for a unification match against Gervonta Davis in mid-2025. Shakur lacks the offense or inside game to fight Zepeda.
So, he will use the same hit-and-run style in his questionable 12-round decision win over Edwin De Los Santos last November.
Shakur was running from De Los Santos, landing almost nothing, and the judge still gave him rounds. We’ll likely see the same approach from Shakur against Zepeda, but it’ll be more extreme because the Mexican star’s offensive skills and worker rate are superior to De Los Santos’.
