William Zepeda and Tevin Farmer both weighed in successfully today for their 12-round lightweight main event this Saturday, March 29th, with their event at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT, live on DAZN at the Poliforum Benito Juárez in Cancún, Mexico. Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) will defend his WBC interim lightweight title against Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) in their rematch of their fight on November 16th last year.
During the face-off, Farmer shoved Zepeda and then moved away to keep him from retaliating. It looked 100% contrived on the former IBF super featherweight champion Farmer’s part to create some buzz.
The interest from fans in the Zepeda-Farmer 2 rematch has been lukewarm because their previous fight last November involved a lot of holding by Farmer. He was using clinching to neutralize Zepeda’s offense at close range, and it worked well but made the fight unwatchable during long stretches.
Farmer used the hit-and-hold approach, which he and his trainer clearly had worked on in camp. For the rematch, Tevin will likely use more of the same approach. So, if Zepeda doesn’t have a plan to deal with the clinching, he could have problems on Saturday.
Weigh-in results
William Zepeda 134.2 vs. Tevin Farmer 135
Oscar Collazo 105 vs. Edwin Cano 104.4
Joselito Velazquez 114.2 vs. Adolfo Castillo 114.4
Robin Safar 200 vs. Roberto Silva 199
Dazn Opener – Flyweights – 10 Rounds
Yokasta Valle 110.6 vs. Marlen Esparza 113.4
Zepeda needs a win to move on to challenge for a title against one of the champions. There had been talk of Zepeda fighting WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson. His performance against Tevin changed those plans. Unless Zepeda looked great on Saturday, it would be a good idea to go in another direction towards fighting for the IBF belt or WBO strap.
Stevenson is too much of a runner for Zepeda to do well against him without making big changes in the way he fights. It’s predictable that Shakur would be running around the ring all night, making it an ugly fight. Zepeda doesn’t have the style to deal with fighters like that.
