{"id":188362,"date":"2025-06-16T07:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T07:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188362\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T07:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T07:02:10","slug":"let-your-hands-go-vs-zepeda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188362\/","title":{"rendered":"Let your hands go vs. Zepeda"},"content":{"rendered":"

It isn’t every day that you’ll see a champion constantly call out a contender. In the case of Shakur Stevenson<\/a> and William Zepeda<\/a>, that’s exactly what happened. <\/p>\n

For years, Stevenson chastised him in the public. When that didn’t work, he targeted the unbeaten Mexican’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya. Although it took longer than expected, Stevenson (23-0, 11 KOs) finally reeled him in. <\/p>\n

Come July 12, The Ring will host at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York<\/a>. <\/p>\n

No one is giving Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs) much chance when he challenges for the full WBC lightweight title. It’s not that he’s a bad fighter, but when juxtaposing what he brings to the table compared with Stevenson, the U.S. Olympic silver medalist seemingly has the edge. <\/p>\n

Teofimo Lopez<\/a>, who once held Stevenson’s belt, is similarly giving the three-division champion a pre-fight advantage. He just thinks Stevenson must take a slightly different approach.
As of late, Stevenson has been walking over his opponents with ease. Josh Padley notwithstanding<\/a>, he outboxes them from the outside before cruising to a decision on the judges’ scorecards. <\/p>\n

That same recipe may work fine against Zepeda, but the 28-year-old fights like he has something to prove, often throwing north of 75 punches a round at times. <\/p>\n

Still Lopez likes Stevenson, who has been criticized for playing it safe. If that’s the gameplan, the outcome could be different.<\/p>\n

“Shakur knows how to box fighters like that,” said Lopez on a self-recorded call. “I’m hoping to see Shakur do more combinations. If not, it could be a 50\/50 fight.”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It isn’t every day that you’ll see a champion constantly call out a contender. In the case of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,13604,79,31951,16,15,13605],"class_list":{"0":"post-188362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-shakur-stevenson","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-teofimo-lopez","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-william-zepeda"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114691764600067083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}