{"id":723068,"date":"2026-08-01T16:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T16:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/723068\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T16:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T16:54:08","slug":"terence-crawfords-verdict-on-lamont-roach-vs-william-zepeda-title-fight-it-could-be-bad-for-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/723068\/","title":{"rendered":"Terence Crawford’s verdict on Lamont Roach vs William Zepeda title fight: “It could be bad for him”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terence Crawford<\/a> has offered Lamont Roach some words of wisdom ahead of his vacant WBC world title clash with William Zepeda.<\/p>\n

The sanctioning body\u2019s two leading lightweight contenders will collide this evening, headlining a Golden Boy card in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Zepeda has therefore been presented with a second stab at the WBC 135lb strap, despite coming off a unanimous decision defeat to Shakur Stevenson<\/a> in July 2025.<\/p>\n

Even against Stevenson, though, the Mexican fought at a relentless pace and proved that he represents a hard night\u2019s work for any fighter.<\/p>\n

Roach, on the other hand, has been accused of lacking a degree of urgency, or rather believing he is comfortably ahead on the judges\u2019 scorecards when, really, the fight remains in the balance.<\/p>\n

This appeared to be the case in his last outing, against Isaac \u2018Pitbull\u2019 Cruz, whose sheer aggression and work rate saw him come away with a 12-round draw in December.<\/p>\n

Prior to that, Roach boxed to a far more contentious draw against Gervonta Davis<\/a>, who should have suffered a knockdown when he touched the canvas in round nine.<\/p>\n

The fact remains, however, that Roach must elevate his punch output and intensity if he is to emerge victorious against Zepeda.<\/p>\n

Speaking with FightHype<\/a>, former three-division undisputed champion Crawford outlined this as an area of improvement for the 30-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a good fight. If Roach don\u2019t pick up his punch count, it\u2019s going to be a bad one [for him].\u201d<\/p>\n

While seemingly needing to increase his volume, Roach does have the footwork and fluidity to cause Zepeda serious problems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terence Crawford has offered Lamont Roach some words of wisdom ahead of his vacant WBC world title clash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-723068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}