William Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs) retained his WBC interim lightweight title with a 12-round majority decision over former IBF super featherweight champion Tevin Farmer (33-8-1, 8 KOs) on Saturday night in their rematch at the Poliforum Benito Juárez in Cancún, Mexico.
114-114, 116-112, and 115-113 for Zepeda. The fight didn’t look like a draw. It’s unclear what the judge who scored it 114-114 was watching because it was a clear win for Zepeda, who dominated five of the first six rounds of the contest.
Farmer used a massive amount of clinching to neutralize Zepeda’s offense in every round. The referee told Farmer to stop holding, but he kept doing it throughout the fight. I’ve never seen a fighter hold as much as Farmer did tonight and not have points taken off.
The holding played a huge factor in the outcome because without it, Farmer likely would have been knocked out or, at the very least, beaten up to the point where he would have been a punching bag in the second half.
WBO World Minimumweight champion Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs) massacred the hapless Edwin Cano Hernandez (13-3-1, 4 KOs), scoring a fifth round knockout. Collazo, 28, flattened Cano with a body shot in the fifth, and that was all she wrote.
In a thrilling flyweight battle, Yokasta Valle (33-3, 10 KOs) edged Marlen Esparza (15-3, 1 KOs), winning a ten-round split decision. Both fighters stood toe-to-toe, throwing bombs, making it difficult to pick a winner. The judges scored it 96-94 for Esparza, 97-93 & 97-93 for Valle.
