Maxi Hughes (26-7-2, 5 KOs) revealed that it wasn’t the headshots from William Zepeda (30-0, 26 KOs) that resulted in his fourth-round TKO loss to the Mexicao knockout artist on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
It was the combination of body shots and nonstop punches that hurt the 34-year-old Hughes and drained the energy out of him in their IBF/WBA lightweight title eliminator at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in their fight on DAZN.
Hughes says Zepeda’s power wasn’t extraordinary. He says he’s faced harder punchers during his career. It was the sheer number of shots he was throwing.
The Unexpected Killer
“We came with a couple of things we worked on in the gym. Sparring had gone well. His headshots, despite what my face looked like, his headshots were not the hardest shots I’ve ever been hit with,” said Maxi Hughes to the media after his fourth round TKO loss to William Zepeda last Saturday night.”
Zepeda isn’t known for being a one-punch KO artist. He’s always been viewed as fighter that throws a lot of shots and has enough power to make him dangerous. His defense isn’t the greatest, and he’s been hurt before by non-punchers.
Respect in Defeat
“His nonstop action. It was the body shots,” said Hughes. “The one in particular, he was chipping away, chipping away. I thought, ‘I could check these off. I could check these off,’ and he could be with one up the middle in the solar plexuses, and that was the one that just sapped it right out of me.
“It drained me. I tried to land a couple back, but there was nothing there. I take my hat off to him. We came ready. I have a good team around me. I respect their decision to pull me out because I was struggling in there,” said Hughes.
