William Zepeda Crushes Giovanni Cabrera in Three-Round Blowout

William Zepeda (31-0, 27 KOs) looked dominant in walking through Giovanni Cabrera (22-2, 7 KOs) en route to a third round knockout Saturday night at the Toyota Center in Ontario, California in a bout televised by DAZN.

Cabrera, a Chicago native who trains out of Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles, began the fight true to form. Employing an awkward ring style that comes, in great part, from a lack of refined skill, the 29-year-old had a couple of instances of success stemming from that awkwardness in the first round against the Mexican top contender.

By the second round, however, Cabrera’s clumsy pot-shotting had been rendered null and void and Zepeda, 28, began to land some significant shots.

As the third round began, Zepeda was in full control and seemed to be hurting Cabrera at will to both the head and body. The end of the contest came later that same round as a pair of thudding lefts to the body forced Cabrera to take a knee. He wouldn’t rise until referee Thomas Taylor had already reached the count of 10.

The reality is that this bout was purely a “stay busy” engagement against an opponent who had earned some name value by doing better than expect in a competitive decision loss to Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz last July. Cabrera didn’t have anything in his offensive arsenal to hurt Zepeda or even earn his respect and he lacked the all-around skill to box effectively against the heavy favorite. It was a safe challenge for a fighter zeroing in on a world title shot who has aspirations of becoming a breakthrough star.

After the fight, Zepeda, who is the number one lightweight contender in all four of the recognized sanctioning bodies’ rankings, said, through his interpreter and trainer Jay ‘Panda’ Najar, that he would take on any of the reigning 135 lb. champs, but he specifically called out the Ukraine’s Denys Berinchyk, who won the vacant WBO title against Mexico’s Emanuel Navarrete just this past May.