Shakur Stevenson says he rewatched his fight against William Zepeda, saying it was the “toughest fight” of his career, and he feels that the Mexican brawler showed potential to be a “gatekeeper” in the lightweight division.
Zepeda’s Blueprint for Shakur’s Defeat
What fans saw was Zepeda creating the blueprint on how to defeat Shakur by overwhelming his potshot offense with volume punching. Despite not getting the win, Zepeda created a lasting blueprint for defeating Stevenson.
William deserves credit for showing how to defeat the Newark, New Jersey native. However, Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez had shown the key in the 2016 Olympics when he overwhelmed Stevenson with punches, leaving him crying without tears afterward.
The Truth: Shakur Got Battered
The WBC lightweight champion Stevenson (24-0, 11 KOs) was out-punched by Zepeda, and staggered in the third round from a stabbing jab that got through his normally airtight defense.
Labeling Zepeda (33-1, 27 KOs) as a gatekeeper-level fighter was a transparent attempt by Shakur to minimize the nightmare he experienced, getting pummeled all night, and appearing to lose the fight in the eyes of some fans.
The judges gave Stevenson a wide 12-round unanimous decision, with scores of 118-110, 118-110, and 119-109. Those scores did nothing to fool fans who had watched the fight and seen that Shakur had gotten beaten up by Zepeda on the ropes. He appeared to take more punishment than Zepeda’s last opponent, Tevin Farmer, who had enough offense to save himself from getting buried with his high output.
Just imagine @KidAustin11 or Tank land that jab 😭
All these slow ass niggas gassing him up will have a mental breakdown https://t.co/dF5v2zTZ5H
— A-Side (@HighLvlBoxing22) July 18, 2025
Shakur’s “Gatekeeper” Insult Backfired
“I watched it, and the most I could have given him was four rounds. It was a good fight, though. That [fighter] is tough. I feel he should be a gatekeeper. All these people that skip lines. I feel you have to go through Zepeda,” said Shakur Stevenson to Cigar Talk about what role William Zepeda can serve at lightweight.
We don’t know how good Zepeda is because he still hasn’t fought these top talents:
– Andy Cruz
– Abdullah Mason
– Floyd Schofield
– Raymond Muratalla
– Jadier Herrera
The Cuban Cruz would be the real test to gauge how good Zepeda is because he’s clearly the best fighter in the lightweight division. He’s not being given the same promotional push that Shakur is by Matchroom and Turki Alalshikh. It just shows that boxing is more about marketing fighters as a product, even if they’re fake and nowhere near the best. It’s just business.
Stevenson’s Protected Record
That’s why Shakur Stevenson isn’t being pitted against fighters like Andy Cruz, Abdullah Mason, or Schofield because they would ruin everything. All the promotion and marketing of him would go down the drain.
“Yeah, that was the toughest fight of my career. It wasn’t my fight. It was his fight, but it doesn’t mean he was winning in his fight,” said Shakur when told by the interviewer that he was worried for him after the first two rounds.
If Stevenson had had fought “his fight,” he’d have been booed out of the Louis Armstrong Stadium that night, and he would have regretted doing so afterward. In the brief instances that Shakur ran from Zepeda in rounds 10 through 12, the crowd immediately began booing. They didn’t wait to let him know that they didn’t appreciate his Jerry style because they’d paid to be entertained.
Shakur needs to understand that he will have to fight aggressively for the remainder of his career if he doesn’t want to hear the boos and continue to be placed on undercards. This isn’t the 1990s, back in the Mayweather era.
Fans will not tolerate boring fighters in this era, unlike when Floyd was fighting, when there were fewer options for entertainment. Shakur needs to permanently scrap his old style of fighting and continue to use the more entertaining approach that he had for the Zepeda fight.
Shakur’s Unconvincing, Fake Smile
“You could see that I was smiling because I was having fun. I wasn’t in no panic. I had to do what he didn’t expect me to do,” said Stevenson.
The fake-looking smile that Shakur was doing had some fans fooled, but if you had any insight, you could see through his bleeding lips and swollen eyes that he was not a happy camper with the pressure Zepeda was applying to him.
That smile was just a primitive bluff on Stevenson’s part, trying to show fans and Zepeda that he wasn’t bothered about the nonstop punches he was hammering him with to the midsection.
Zepeda may not have landed a lot to the head due to Shakur leaning over the ropes to avoid headshots, but he was getting hit to the body at will. He outlanded Stevenson by a wide margin in the fight, but the judges only factored headshots in their scoring. That explains their wide scores in favor of Stevenson.
Last Updated on 07/18/2025
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