William Zepeda and Raymond Muratalla will leave Las Vegas with lightweight hardware, but only one of them seems to be keeping it much longer.
Zepeda (34-1, 27 KO) won the vacant WBC 135 lb belt with a clear and clean win over Lamont Roach Jr, who is now 0-1-2 in his last three fights, and this is the one where there won’t be any raging debates over who deserved the victory. It was Zepeda, as Roach (25-2-3, 10 KO) openly admitted after the bout.
“Zepeda was well-prepared tonight, him and his team had a tremendous game plan and he put it into play. No excuses, I take my hat off to their team. He was just one step ahead of me,” Roach said.
“Coming into the fight, we just thought he was a one-trick pony, [but] he actually uses his feet, as you could see. He was stepping back and kind of countering, or not allowing me to get my counters off. He did it the whole fight. I had to switch things up, and I just didn’t succeed. That’s it.”
For his part, Zepeda says he wants to go after undisputed status at 135, but he’s unlikely to face Muratalla if and when he does take a crack at the IBF lightweight belt.
Roach vs Zepeda and Muratalla vs Conceicao official score cards
Judges saw Zepeda the winner over Roach on scores of 117-111, 117-111, and 118-110. Bad Left Hook unofficially scored the fight 116-112 and 116-112, slightly closer, but also a deserved win for Zepeda, as we saw it.
Muratalla took cards of 118-110, 119-109, and 119-109 over Conceicao, from the official judges. Bad Left Hook also had that one slightly closer but the same winner, with two cards of 117-111 in Muratalla’s favor.
Muratalla beat veteran and former super featherweight titleholder Robson Conceicao by wide and unanimous decision, making a successful second defense of the belt, after defending against Andy Cruz following being “elevated” from interim status.
It also looks like it will be his final defense of that belt, as he stated after the fight that he struggled with the weight in camp and didn’t feel like he had his best performance tonight as a result. A move up to 140 seems to be in the cards, then.
What did you think of tonight’s fights? How great was DAZN’s audio?
