Terence Crawford believes a fight between newly crowned WBC lightweight champion William Zepeda and unified super featherweight champion Emanuel Navarrete would produce a brutal all-Mexican battle.
Zepeda captured the vacant WBC title with a unanimous decision victory over Lamont Roach, returning to winning ways after his previous defeat to Shakur Stevenson.
Crawford attended the fight and admitted Zepeda showed far more variety than he expected. He praised the Mexican’s movement, footwork, angles, feints, jab and ability to immediately answer whenever Roach landed cleanly.
“Zepeda caught me off guard,” Crawford said. “I was looking for a straight come-forward type fighter, but from round one I said, ‘Damn, look at his movement.’”
When a possible fight with Navarrete was discussed, Crawford predicted an extremely damaging contest between two aggressive champions.
“You talk about a bloodbath, it’s a bloodbath waiting,” Crawford said.
Navarrete currently holds the WBO and IBF super featherweight titles. Moving up to challenge Zepeda would give the three-weight champion an opportunity to win a world title in a fourth division.
Image Credit: Golden Boy