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Shakur Stevenson retains title, defeats William Zepeda in Queens
Shakur Stevenson wins by unanimous decision to retain his title (1:23)
Shakur Stevenson beats William Zepeda to retain his WBC lightweight title. (1:23)
Andreas Hale is a combat sports reporter at ESPN. Andreas covers MMA, boxing and pro wrestling. In Andreas' free time, he plays video games, obsesses over music and is a White Sox and 49ers fan. He is also a host for Sirius XM's Fight Nation. Before joining ESPN, Andreas was a senior writer at DAZN and Sporting News. He started his career as a music journalist for outlets including HipHopDX, The Grammys and Jay-Z's Life+Times. He is also an NAACP Image Award-nominated filmmaker as a producer for the animated short film "Bridges" in 2024.
NEW YORK -- Shakur Stevenson (24-0, 11 KOs) promised to hold his ground and deliver an exciting performance. The only thing he wasn't able to do against William Zepeda (33-1, 27 KOs) was score a knockout, but the WBC lightweight champion put together a boxing clinic Saturday night to retain his title with a unanimous decision at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens.
Two scorecards favored Stevenson 118-110, and one judge had it 119-109.
"He came in, pushed me," Stevenson said of Zepeda. "He pushed me to another level."
Turki Alashikh relegated Stevenson to the co-main event and demanded that there would be no "Tom & Jerry fights" for any events he puts on moving forward. Stevenson listened and reminded people that Jerry routinely outsmarted Tom in the cartoons by setting traps and making the cat pay for his mistakes.
Stevenson held his ground throughout the 12-round affair, allowing Zepeda to unload a high volume of punches and catching a majority of them on his arms and shoulders. But instead of circling away, Stevenson used a jab to the body, uppercuts and beautiful combination punching that tormented Zepeda. Zepeda did manage to land a hard right hand in the third round that appeared to rock Stevenson, but outside of that, there was little to nothing of note that troubled the champion.
"Once again, I had to stay off the ropes, pick my punches and make sure I come out victorious," Stevenson said. "Zepeda is a tough guy. I put a lot of punishment on him tonight, and I just want to thank y'all for the opportunity."
Zepeda was undeterred and relentless with his punch output, which allowed Stevenson plenty of windows to counter and punch through. By the middle to late rounds, Zepeda slowed down just enough for Stevenson to start leading the action with hooks to the head and body. Although Zepeda was never badly hurt, he was severely outgunned by the extraordinarily accurate fighter of Newark, New Jersey.
Stevenson's performance proved that he's undoubtedly main event material and can be extremely exciting when deemed necessary. He found it necessary to prove a point tonight and did exactly that with a one-sided drubbing of a man who was thought to give him a challenge.
"At the end of the day, I told you all, whatever it takes to get the job done," Stevenson said. "I got dog in me. I'm not a puppy, I'm not a poodle, I'm a tough guy, so I got dog in me."
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