“I always dreamed of becoming a world champion and today with my incredible team we were able to achieve it. We know he has that Guinness record for punches… we just needed to be smarter, stay touching that body and just come forward,” Zepeda trainer Jay “Panda” Najar told BoxingScene. Najar said that although Zepeda was a slight betting underdog to a sophisticated boxer, “we knew from the sparring and practice we had, there was nobody on earth that could defeat William Zepeda on this night of August 1, 2026.” In order to do that, you have to stay in the pocket, so I told William to touch his body. After the open scoring revealed a wide lead after eight rounds, Najar told Zepeda to fight smart, and doing so sealed the victory.