WBC interim lightweight champion William Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs) finished his two-fight rivalry with Tevin Farmer (33-8-1, 8 KOs), beating him by a 12-round majority decision last Saturday night in their rematch in Cancun, Mexico.
Farmer’s Tactics
The Canadian judge scored a draw at 114-114, but the other two judges saw it as a clear win for Zepeda, who did the much better work, dominating nine of the twelve rounds. Farmer came on in the last three rounds, using his hit, hold, and run style to stymie the Zepeda’s offensive output.
Most boxing fans would agree that Zepeda would have knocked out Farmer if the referee had taken points away from the 34-year-old for his constant clinching. The holding that Tevin did was the only thing keeping him in the fight because he couldn’t match the punch output from Zepeda, who threw close to 1000 punches in the 12-round contest. It would have been much higher if not for the excessive clinching from Farmer.
The scores were 116-112, 115-113 for Zepeda, and 114-114.
Final Punch Stats
– William Zepeda: 344 of 974 for 35% connect rate
– Tevin Farmer: 152 of 679 for 22%
Farmer said after the fight that he felt that he won five of the last six rounds, which doesn’t go with the actual fight that took place. Farmer appeared to win rounds 6, 10, and 12. Those are the ONLY rounds in the fight that he fought well enough to win. Zepeda was machine-gunning him in the other rounds, fighting through his constant wrestling to fire off combinations.
Referee’s Role
Rounds two and four were especially bad for Farmer, as Zepeda hit him nonstop, and he turned his back to him several times. That should have resulted in the fight being stopped, but the referee was just there in body-only last night and doing nothing to rule knockdowns or take points off for holding.
Farmer’s Post-Fight Claims
“I dominated all of the last rounds, at least five of the last rounds. I can’t keep going into camp and then not getting the decision and getting robbed. The last fight was closer than this fight,” said Farmer after the fight.
