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There might come a time when
Oscar Valdez will headline a major pay-per-view card but for the time being,
this talented featherweight prospect is on the undercard this weekend at the
MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas before Tim Bradley and Manny Pacquiao
engage in their return bout. Valdez was originally scheduled to meet the rugged
veteran Dat Nguyen, who pulled out with back injury. Now he faces Adrian Perez.
Regardless, Valdez, whose
record stands at 9-0 (9), is now beginning the step-up stage of his young
career.
“This is my first fight at
eight rounds, so I'm excited for that,” he said last week before his day’s
sparring at the MMA Elite Academy in Santa Fe Springs. “I was also excited for
Dat Nguyen; he was going to be a tough competitor going in the ring. He's an
experienced boxer, so now that he hurt his back, I've got a new rival. I just
know that the competition's going to get better. It just makes me want to train
harder in the gym.”
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Valdez (Pictured) weighed in at 129lbs., Perez 130lbs.) |
Thus far, the 23-year-old
Valdez has scored a string of knockouts against a carefully selected lot of
opponents chosen for him by the Top Rank Promotions staff. The fighter himself
yearns for a few more quality rounds in his fights. “That's one of the reasons
I was excited to fight Dat Nguyen; he was never stopped. He's never been dropped
as a professional and that's against good competition. I was excited for that
fight but he ended up hurting his back but it makes me excited that I'm going
to start fighting guys like that.”
His manager, the respected
Frank Espinoza told Maxboxing, “We have a lot of faith in Oscar's abilities. I
think he's the most promising boxer we have signed from the amateurs. I think
we can go fairly quickly with him but I'm not going to rush him in any way.
He's got so much talent but it still has to be honed and developed. I was
hoping he could get a test versus Nguyen but maybe that will come down the
road. But it's still a great showcase for him this weekend.”
Espinoza and Top Rank plan
on moving Valdez the traditional route, moving him up the ladder in eight, then
ten-rounders, eventually have him fight for a regional belt and hopefully, move
him into a title fight. He certainly won’t be at the rapid pace Vasyl
Lomachenko was on. Lomachenko fought unsuccessfully for the WBO featherweight
belt in just his second pro bout. It's a bout that piqued Valdez’s interest.
“I was excited because I
knew it was going to be a good fight. [Former WBO featherweight titlist Orlando]
Salido's a good friend of mine and I know Lomachenko's a good fighter because I
fought him in the amateurs. But I've always told friends that Salido's going to
pull it off because of experience and it was an exciting fight for me because I
was excited for my friend, knowing that he won the fight, even though he didn't
keep the title because he didn't make weight. But it was an exciting match for
me and my father,” said Valdez, who represented Mexico twice in the Olympics.
For Valdez - and perhaps
many other young Olympians who recently turned pro - this fight was a bit of an
eye-opener. Professional boxing at the world-class level is a completely
different animal. “It was making us look bad, Lomachenko going up there in his
second fight, fighting an experienced fighter for a world title. It got to me
knowing that Lomachenko, a two-time gold medalist didn't do it,” he says, “so
it makes me know I have to be prepared, get those rounds in and get experience.
You can't just go up there and go fight veterans that have been doing this for
more than 15 years.”
“It makes my job easier,”
said Espinoza, who explained, “because it shows guys like Oscar that this is a
process, that there are certain things to learn along the way that you just
can't get in the gym. A lot of these guys are extremely talented but they're
not the same fighter at 10-0 as they will be at 20-0 and so on. They sometimes
think they're ready before they really are and it's our jobs to pull them back.
It's no coincidence that most of your best fighters were developed and brought
along a certain way. There are still things I want to see him work on:
working the jab more, being a bit more patient. But again, that's why we have
him take certain fights, so he can develop all that over time.”
Top Rank has high hopes for
Valdez, believing that alongside Puerto Rican Olympian Felix Verdejo, they have
a pair of bookends who can anchor this company for years to come. The bottom
line is Manny Pacquiao isn't going to last forever and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
is unreliable.
“Everybody is extremely
satisfied with [Valdez]’s progress,” says Carl Moretti, Vice President of
Boxing Operations for Top Rank. “He's fought better competition each time out
and Saturday is another step up. So as long as he continues to progress in the
ring, then we'll move him the way we should out of the ring with his
management.” As for how he'll be moved the rest of the year, Moretti states, “We're
in April now; I'd like him to get four more fights in which I think is very
doable and probably moving to 10-round status by the beginning of 2015.”
Till then, Valdez has time
to polish his skills. When asked what he'd like to improve on most, he says, “How
to work on my stamina. I try not to go at them like I did in the amateurs and
not waste all my energy in the first round and have no energy in the later
rounds. That's what we practice on in the gym and sit down on my punches
because sometimes I do fight like my amateur style where there's more hitting
than natural power punches.
“So it's a lot of little
things I have to work on to become a good professional.”
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