Oscar De La Hoya: ‘Zepeda vs Shakur Is On!’

With all of that drama resolved, it cleared the path to get the fight against WBC interim lightweight champion William Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs) signed, sealed, and delivered. The deal was finalized in a matter of hours as De La Hoya spoke about the fight earlier in the day and how things were back to being discussed by the two teams.

“We want the fight,” said De La Hoya during a media workout in San Diego, CA for welterweight star Ryan Garcia. “It’s a really good fight. We’re back to doing it. It just happened. We’re back to possibly making it happen.” In De La Hoya’s defense, this was before his President, Eric Gomez, arrived at the media roundtable in downtown San Diego.

During the earlier conversation, FightsATW asked whether Stevenson vs. Zepeda would land in SoCal or maybe Las Vegas. De La Hoya quickly answered, “No- East Coast, New York.” Also, given the heat that only lasted a few days between Stevenson and Alalshikh, would the fight involve Alalshikh? “Not sure, but most likely,” said De La Hoya.

Now that we have a fight between Stevenson and Zepeda, the only remaining details are the date and venue, but if we had to predict one, more than likely, it’s in the summer at the Barclays Center. It’s an intriguing matchup as Stevenson has never faced an all-pressure fighter like Zepeda, and the interim champion has never faced a highly skilled boxer like Stevenson. We will soon find out how this fight plays out, but at least we know there won’t be any more marinating for this matchup, barring any training injuries.