NEW YORK — William Zepeda has more incentive than usual to knock out Shakur Stevenson.

The WBC interim lightweight champion cannot see defeating Stevenson on points July 12 because the Newark native is perceived to be the "house fighter." Their 12-round fight for Stevenson’s WBC 135-pound championship also will take place at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, not far from his New Jersey hometown.

That has led the aggressive, all-action Mexican to believe he won’t get the benefit of the doubt on any of the three scorecards in one of the featured fights on The Ring’s next pay-per-view show.

“My mindset is a stoppage,” Zepeda told The Ring recently. “Maybe it could be in the 10th round. Maybe it could be earlier. Maybe it can be a little later. But I know that I have to get a stoppage. I am coming to New York. This is his hometown. The judges are in his favor and I know that I cannot leave this up to the judges. So, my mindset is only that, is to go out and destroy.”

Judges for the Stevenson-Zepeda bout won’t be approved by the New York State Athletic Commission until early in July. Twelve of Stevenson’s 23 professional fights have gone the distance, though none of those 12 victories is considered debatable.

Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs), a southpaw from San Mateo Atenco, Mexico, went the distance in each of his past two fights, a pair of points victories over former IBF junior lightweight champion Tevin Farmer. He didn’t win either of those bouts by unanimous decision, which Zepeda revealed will motivate him even more to defeat Stevenson inside the distance.

Philadelphia’s Farmer fought Zepeda on the inside at times. That mostly benefited Zepeda, who recovered from an unforeseen knockdown during the fourth round in their first fight, a 10-rounder, to win a split decision in November at ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Zepeda defeated Farmer (33-8-1, 8 KOs) by majority decision in their immediate rematch March 29 at Poliforum Benito Juarez in Cancun, Mexico. He doesn’t expect Stevenson (23-0, 11 KOs), a three-weight world champion and 2016 Olympic silver medalist, to be nearly as willing to trade with him as Farmer, also a southpaw.

“It’s something that I worked on mentally in the gym,” Zepeda said. “I know that for as much as he says he’s gonna stand there and trade with me, he’s not gonna trade with me. I know that I gotta make this fight physical. I know that I gotta make this fight a dog fight.

“But I gotta be smart when doing it. I gotta be smart as I do it, and I can’t just lunge in, I can’t just [make] the mistakes that I [made] with Tevin Farmer. But I do know that once he feels the power, once I start touching his body, there’s no way that he’s gonna stand there and trade with me.”

DraftKings lists Stevenson, 27, as minus-1100 favorite to defeat Zepeda, 28, in their mandated title match. This Ring III show also will include a 12-round super middleweight bout between Brooklyn’s Edgar Berlanga (23-1, 18 KOs) and England’s Hamzah Sheeraz (21-0-1, 17 KOs).