Tevin Farmer’s fans are angry, believing he was robbed in his 10-round split decision against lightweight contender William Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) on Saturday night in their fight at The Venue in Riyadh.
Farmer’s followers keep mentioning his fourth-round flash knockdown of Zepeda, using that as a reason why he deserved the victory. They don’t mention that it was the only round that Farmer actually appeared to win, and he was worked to the body and head by Zepeda’s volume punching.
If the only thing a person saw was the brief flash knockdown clip on social media that has gone viral, it’s understandable why they think he was robbed and deserved the win over Zepeda. That’s not the reality of the fight. Zepeda dominated every round with volume and had farmers holding for survival purposes.
Zepeda Overwhelmed Farmer
Farmer’s fans need to let this little statistic sink in. Zepeda threw 1087 punches and landed 527 for a 48% connect rate. Not only was Zepeda throwing a massive number of punches each round, but he literally couldn’t miss.
What made that even more significant is that he was throwing power shots, many of them to the body of Farmer, and that’s why the Philadelphia native had nothing left by the sixth round.
Farmer’s Sea Lamprey Strategy Fails
Those body shots from Zepeda were kryptonite to Farmer, weakening him to the point where he was holding him like a sea lamprey latching onto a fish. Farmer did the best he could with his pot shots, but he couldn’t match the work rate or the power of Zepeda’s shots. It’s unclear if Farmer’s team’s game plan for the fight was to clinch incessantly to smother Zepeda’s offense or if he came up with this on his own. Either way, it was a failure.
If Farmer wanted to win, he needed to throw punches because it was obvious that he couldn’t handle the heat that Zepeda was putting on him.
That’s why he lost. If judges scored rounds based on clinching, Farmer would have won because he topped Zepeda in every round in that category.
It’s not the end of the world for Zepeda. He can come back from this loss if he returns to super featherweight, but it’s obvious at this point that he’s too weak to compete at lightweight. If he stays in the weight class, he’s going to continue to be used as a B-side opponent to help prepare fighters for Shakur Stevenson, which is why he got the gig against Zepeda. He’s a knockoff version of Shakur, but braver, more power and not a runner.
De La Hoya In Awe of Zepeda
“I had it one point for William. He had the relentless style; he kept throwing punches. He lands punches like no other fighter,” said Oscar De La Hoya to iFL TV about William Zepeda after his win over Tevin Farmer at the Latino Night on Saturday in Riyadh.
“Tevin is a great fighter. He told me after the fight, ‘Look, I want to come back and fight for you. Absolutely, Tevin Farmer will be champion one day.”
If Farmer is going to be a champion “one day,” it had better be soon because he’ll be turning 35 in July, and he’s lost his last two fights. De La Hoya needs to persuade Farmer to return to 130 or drop down even further to 126 if he can make the weight.
Farmer is not going to ever be a world champion at 135 because he can’t punch hard enough, as we saw against Zepeda. He’s going to clinch his way to a world title.
Now this fight is over, Zepeda is ready to challenge WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson and overwhelm him with punches like he did against Farmer. Shakur’s work rate is abysmal compared to that of Zepeda.
For example, in Shakur’s fight against Edwin De Los Santos last year on November 16th, he threw only 297 punches and landed 81. Now, compare that to the 1087 punches thrown by Zepeda against Farmer. Zepeda landed 527 of those shots. You see what I mean. It’s probably not going to end well for Shakur.