NEW YORK – William Zepeda doesn’t blame only Shakur Stevenson for the lack of action in his notorious 12-round lightweight title fight with Edwin De Los Santos.

The Mexican southpaw didn’t absolve Stevenson of wrongdoing, either. It’s just that Zepeda knows De Los Santos could’ve countered Stevenson’s defensiveness differently if he truly wanted to win their fight for the then-vacant WBC lightweight title in November 2023 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Zepeda promised to take the complete opposite approach to his own showdown with Stevenson on July 12 at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens than his left-handed Dominican contemporary took. The unbeaten, all-action challenger intends to make Stevenson stand and fight by aggressively going at Stevenson (23-0, 11 KOs), also a southpaw, and cutting off the ring so that Stevenson can’t replicate how he handled De Los Santos.

"There's a difference between me and De Los Santos,” Zepeda told The Ring before a press conference Thursday at Palladium Times Square. "We can both punch, but I believe that I have a little more technique, things like that. And one thing about me, I’m coming to make a war. I don’t care about getting knocked out. I don’t care about losing the fight. I’m coming to give my fans what they wanna see. I’m not here to worry about how I look. I’m here and I wanna give the fans a war.”

The highly skilled Stevenson is listed by DraftKings as an 11-1 favorite over Zepeda (33-0, 27 KOs), who many experts expect to give Stevenson more trouble than any of his first 23 professional opponents. The three-division champion from Newark, New Jersey will make his third defense of a WBC belt he won when he unanimously out-pointed De Los Santos (16-2, 14 KOs).

Zepeda watched Stevenson-De Los Santos live from his home in San Mateo Atenco, Mexico.

Stevenson won eight rounds apiece on the cards of judges Tim Cheatham and Steve Weisfeld, both of whom scored their fight 116-112. Judge David Sutherland scored it 115-113 for Stevenson, who won seven rounds on his card.

Stevenson failed, according to Zepeda, to win over fans by boxing almost strictly from the outside versus De Los Santos.

“I think Shakur didn’t do enough,” Zepeda said. “I believe that Shakur felt De Los Santos’ power and he respected De Los Santos’ power and wasn’t willing to take those risks. I think that if Shakur would’ve just put together a little more punch output, it would’ve been an amazing victory. But because of the way that he beat De Los Santos, it was just a normal victory.”

The 28-year-old Zepeda plans to give fight fans much more to applaud when he encounters Stevenson at one of the tennis venues that hosts the U.S. Open every summer.

“As a fan, I was bored,” Zepeda said of Stevenson-De Los Santos. “But as someone that boxes, I know there was a strategy. He used his boxing IQ. But for the fans, I believe they didn’t give a show, they didn’t do anything that made them deserving of being fan favorites.”

Stevenson-Zepeda will be one of four fights DAZN Pay-Per-View will stream July 12 as part of “Ring III” card, The Ring’s third event in a 2½-month span. The Ring rates Stevenson third among its lightweight contenders, one position ahead of the fourth-rated Zepeda.

In the other featured fight, super middleweight contender Edgar Berlanga (23-1, 18 KOs) will square off against England’s Hamzah Sheeraz (21-0-1, 17 KOs). Brooklyn’s Berlanga is ranked No. 9 among The Ring’s super middleweight contenders, whereas Sheeraz, who is rated third at middleweight, will make his debut in the 168-pound division.