Fight Week: Punching machine William Zepeda set to face Maxi Hughes

FIGHT WEEK

Prime 135-pound contender William Zepeda is scheduled to face slick Maxi Hughes in a title eliminator Saturday in Las Vegas.

WILLIAM ZEPEDA (29-0, 25 KOs)VS. MAXI HUGHES (26-6-2, 5 KOs)

Date: Saturday, March 16
Time: 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT (most important occasion later in present)
The place: The Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas
TV/Stream: DAZN
Division: Light-weight (135 kilos)
At stake: No main titles
Pound-for-pound: None
Odds: Zepeda 6-1 favourite (common of a number of shops)
Significance (as much as 5 stars): ***
Additionally on the cardboard: Floyd Schofield vs. Esteuri Suero, lightweights; Marlen Esparza vs. Gabriela Alaniz, flyweights (for Esparza’s WBA, WBC and WBO titles); Victor Morales vs. Luis Reynado Nunez, featherweights

Background: Zepeda is scorching on the heels of the highest 135-pounders after a sequence of spectacular performances. The quantity-punching, highly effective 27-year-old southpaw from Mexico is coming off his greatest victory, a brutal sixth-round knockout of former prime contender Mercito Gesta in September. That adopted a near-shutout victory over former 130-pound champ Joseph Diaz in October 2022 and a second-round stoppage over Jaime Arboleda final April. Zepeda threw a division-record 1,536 punches within the Diaz battle, based on CompuBox. He’s ranked within the Prime 5 of all main sanctioning our bodies, No. 1 by each the WBA and WBC. His battle with Hughes is being billed as a title eliminator for the IBF and WBA. Hughes, a 33-year-old southpaw from the U.Ok., is an efficient boxer with restricted energy. He gave a powerful efficiency towards former 135-pound titleholder George Kambosos Jr. in his most up-to-date battle final July, dropping a disputed majority choice. That effort evidently earned him a shot at Zepeda. He had received his earlier seven fights, together with a majority choice over succesful Child Galahad in September 2022.

ALSO FIGHTING THIS WEEK

WEDNESDAY

Radivoje Kalajdzic vs. Sullivan Barrera, mild heavyweights, Plant Metropolis, Florida (ProBox TV)
Sam Goodman vs. Mark Schleibs, junior featherweights, Wollongong, Australia (no TV in U.S.)

FRIDAY

Callum Walsh vs. Dauren Yeleussinov, junior middleweights, New York (UFC Struggle Move)

SATURDAY

Nathan Heaney vs. Brad Pauls, middleweights, Birmingham, England (ESPN+)