Zepeda’s Path To A Lightweight Title: Navigating The Challenges

William Zepeda’s win last Saturday night over Giovanni Cabrera strengthened his position as the #1 contender at lightweight for all four belts. Now the question is, which champion can Zepeda’s promoters at Golden Boy land for him to face this year?

(Photo Credit: Golden Boy Promotions/ Cris Esqueda)

Most believe that Denys Berinchyk, the WBO 135-lb champion, is the easiest and the most winnable fight for Zepeda (31-0, 27 KOs). However, Top Rank wants Keyshawn Davis to fight Berinchyk, and there’s the possibility he could face unbeaten #8 Mark Chamberlain next.

Given that the sanctioning bodies are sporadic in enforcing mandates, it’s useless for Zepeda to go that route, and his #1 ranking won’t help him get a title shot against the Top Rank-promoted Berinchyk if they choose Keyshawn as his next challenger.

Berinchyk is the way to go

“Berinchyk is the way to go. Oscar De La Hoya is doing his job. He’s saying, ‘We want Tank Davis and Shakur Stevenson.’ Yes, those are the big names, and it sounds great, but I think the way to go is Berinchyk because that’s a winnable fight,” said Sergio Mora to DAZN Boxing, talking about who William Zepeda should target for his next fight.

“Against the other guys, I would have Zepeda as the underdog. But either way, Zepeda has earned his shot at a world title. This man is destined to fight a champion.”

Zepeda has no chance of getting a fight against any of the four champions unless the promoters want that fight. Why would they? He’s not popular, and he brings a lot of problems, especially against someone like Shakur, who has no power and would be on his bike all night.

The Challenge of Zepeda’s Output

“I don’t know if I would make him an underdog against any of those guys,” said Chris Mannix about William Zepeda. “I think Zepeda’s output would be a huge problem for Tank. It would be incredibly competitive. Tank is capable of shutting your lights out at any moment.”

Zepeda would be a problem for all the champions, but he might have to wait a long, long time before he gets a title shot. It could mimic what we’re seeing at 168, with David Benavidez ranked #1 for ages yet not getting a chance to challenge champion Canelo Alvarez.

“I would call it a 50-50 type of fight between Zepeda and Tank Davis. I do think Berinchyk is the way to go if they can make that fight happen. But these other guys, Tank, Lomachenko, and Shakur Stevenson, you’ve got to contend with a guy that throws 100 punches per round,” said Mannix about the difficulties that Zepeda would present to those fighters with his high work rate.

A Waiting Game: Zepeda’s Uncertain Future

If Zepeda doesn’t mind waiting for a while, he’ll eventually get a chance to fight for a belt at 135, but who knows when that will happen? If it’s against WBC champion Shakur, he could need a knockout to win because he’ll be moving nonstop for twelve rounds like he did against Edwin De Los Santos.

It would be a situation where the judges might score it favorably to Shakur and ignore the pressure and the harder punches that Zepeda lands. That’s what we saw in Shakur’s controversial win over De Los Santos.

“We saw Cabrera have some success early on [against Zepeda], but then he eventually succumbed in the third round. That wasn’t quite the same as Maxi Hughes saying, ‘I don’t want any more’ and not coming out of his corner.

“By staying on his knee all the way to the count of ten, that was Giovanni Cabrera saying, ‘I don’t want anymore.’ We’ve seen a lot of that from opponents of William Zepeda,” said Mannix.

It did look like Cabrera quit in the third round after being dropped with a body shot from Zepeda. He stayed down until the count of nine before starting to get up, and that usually means a fighter is quitting and wants an excuse to give the fans and media for their loss.