By Brian Webber: Lightweight contender William Zepeda opened the eyes of many boxing fans last Saturday night with his one-sided 12 round unanimous decision victory over former IBF super middleweight champion Joseph ‘Jojo’ Diaz.
Zepeda (27-0, 23 KOs) threw over 1000 punches in beating the 2012 Olympian Diaz (32-3-1, 15 KOs) through 12 rounds, doing a better job of defeating him than Devin Haney had done last December.
With this victory for ‘Camaron’ Zepeda, an interesting fight that many boxing fans would be interested in seeing would be against the unbeaten Ryan Garcia.
If Ryan fails to get a fight against WBA secondary lightweight champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, a logical choice would be for him to face Zepeda because it would be an easy match-up to make. Both guys are with Golden Boy Promotions and fight on the same network on DAZN.
Ryan will need a test like Zepeda to show whether he’s ready for the 140-lb division because if he can’t deal with this kind of offensive firepower, he’s not going to cut it against the likes of Regis Prograis, Jose Ramirez, Josh Taylor, Teofimo Lopez, and Jose Zepeda. The same applies to Devin Haney.
“I like that fight a lot, and Zepeda showed a lot [against Joseph ‘Jojo’ Diaz,” said Chris Algieri to Get In The Zone about his thoughts on a hypothetical fight between Ryan Garcia and William Zepeda.
“We’ve seen power. He [Zepeda] has power in both hands. He lets his hands [go]. I love combination punchers. We lacked them lately. We haven’t seen them in years.
“A guy like Ryan, who isn’t the busiest guy in the world. Obviously, he has the big vaunted left hook. That style match-up is some clash,” said Algieri.
“When you have respect for this sport when you give yourself to this sport, and you know what you’re getting into, then you know you can come on top,” said William Zepeda to AB Boxing News following his win over Jojo Diaz last Saturday.
“We trained for a few different plans, my team and I. We thought he was going to box a little bit more, but we also know he’s a very valiant fighter, and that’s going to come forward. We didn’t have to come looking for him.
“So what we did was touch the soft spots, and we knew he was going to diminish little by little. I believe this victory has positioned me in the 135 pounds. We know that it’s a very tough division. I’m just going to sit here and wait for my promoter and team call me and tells me what’s next for me,” said Zepeda.
