By: Sean Crose
No one expected Oscar Valdez to fall in the second round against Adam Lopez in 2019. After all, Lopez is basically the famous Valdez’s last-minute rival. However, Valdez went down, thanks to a nasty left-hand from Lopez. Valdez managed to overtake the count and eventually win the match thanks to a seventh inning stop, but those moments on the mat remain in the collective memory. Now, 30-1 Valdez has a chance to erase that memory when he takes on Lopez 16-4 again this Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
The match, which is essentially the co-main event on Devin Haney-Vasyl Lomachenko’s pay-per-view card, is important to 32-year-old Valdez for several reasons. Besides the rematch with Lopez, Valdez will also play his first match since suffering a lone defeat to the gloved hand of Shakur Stevenson more than a year ago. Not only did Shakur score an L on Valdez’s other perfect record, but he also walked out of the ring that night with Valdez’s WBC super featherweight belt in his possession, thanks to the most decisive nod. wisdom from the referees.
Valdez, needless to say, wants another glorious title win. If he beats 27-year-old Lopez for the second time in the scheduled 10 round this weekend, he’ll find himself one step closer to another chance at that glory. “We want the best,” Valdez recently said FightHype. “We want WBO, WBC, WBA, IBF (belts). The sky is the limit… but for that to happen, I have to fight Adam Lopez and finish him off first.” Indeed. Valdez has good reason to be confident. Boxers may be 32 years old now, but 32 is not 32 years old in boxing before.
Add to that a matter of experience. Over the course of his career, Valdez, a lovable multi-part list, has beaten the likes of Scott Quigg and Miguel Berchelt – none of whom have a definition of lazy. Furthermore, when one considers the fact that a failure on Valdez’s resume comes from Stevenson – a man some are saying is one of the best weightlifters on earth – it won’t be too much. hard to picture Valdez once again having at least one world title he owns. As everyone knows, great things can happen when a person returns to his winning path.
