Featherweight Oscar Valdez's goal is a victory away

Unbeaten featherweight Oscar Valdez will co-headline a PPV card for the first time. Chris Farina/Top Rank

Dan Rafael
ESPN Senior Writer

As a young boy, featherweight contender Oscar Valdez was enamored by boxing and, as a Mexican growing up in Tucson, Arizona, his favorite fighters were not surprisingly world champion countrymen Erik Morales, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. and Jose Luis Castillo.

And like so many boxing fans he also loved the rivalry between Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera, who waged three epic title fights that will be a big part of their legacies when the International Hall of Fame eventually beckons them. Valdez watched their fights and dreamed of winning a world title like they had.

Crawford-Postol
TV lineup for Top Rank’s card Saturday night (HBO PPV, 9 ET) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas:

•Junior welterweights: Terence Crawford (28-0, 20 KOs) vs. Viktor Postol (28-0, 12 KOs), 12 rounds, world title unification

•Featherweights: Oscar Valdez (19-0, 17 KOs) vs. Matias Adrian Rueda (26-0, 23 KOs), 12 rounds, for a vacant world title

•Welterweights: Jose Benavidez Jr. (24-0, 16 KOs) vs. Francisco Santana (24-4-1, 12 KOs), 10 rounds

•Light heavyweights: Oleksandr Gvozdyk (10-0, 10 KOs) vs. Tommy Karpency (26-5-1, 15 KOs), 10 rounds
Now all grown up at age 25, Valdez has his chance to win the world title he has dreamed of. With Vasyl Lomachenko relinquishing his featherweight title after moving up in weight and winning a junior lightweight belt on June 11, Valdez (19-0, 17 KOs) will square off with Argentina’s Matias Adrian Rueda (26-0, 23 KOs) for the vacant title on Saturday night (HBO PPV, 9 ET) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The fight is the co-feature to the Terence Crawford-Viktor Postol junior welterweight title unification fight.

“It would be a dream come true,” Valdez said of winning the belt. “I’ve dreamed of it since I first stepped in the ring. I watched Morales and Barrera fight and I said I wanted to be one of those big names. I would picture myself being like them inside the ring. I was more of an Erik Morales guy. I rooted for him but I respected Barrera also. They were both great fighters and I want to be like them.”

Valdez, who represented Mexico in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics — the only two-time Olympic boxer in the nation’s history — became an even bigger Morales fan when he had a chance to meet him as an amateur.

“I met him a couple of times and they were great experiences. He gave me tips on fighting when I was amateur,” he said. “It was very exciting for me. I also got to meet Julio Cesar Chavez and Castillo, my idols. They all said I’ll be a future world champion. For them to say that means a lot to me. They were greats in boxing, so it was motivation knowing they’ve got faith in me.”

“It would be a dream come true. I’ve dreamed of it since I first stepped in the ring. I watched Morales and Barrera fight and I said I wanted to be one of those big names. I would picture myself being like them inside the ring.”
Oscar Valdez on the chance of winning a world title
Valdez said he first met Morales at an amateur tournament in San Diego. Morales, who is from nearby Tijuana, took a liking to Valdez’s pressure style that was reminiscent of his own.

“They asked him who he liked the best on the Mexican team and he said, ‘I like the bantamweight,'” said Valdez, a bantamweight at the time. “That meant a lot to me. Now I have a chance to win this title as a professional in the same weight class Morales was champion in. That’s big for me.”

Top Rank signed Valdez out of the 2012 Olympics and has considered him one its top prospects from that Olympic class along with lightweight Felix Verdejo and junior welterweight Jose Ramirez. So far, Valdez has lived up to the expectations but with one more big step to take — winning that 126-pound title.

“I think it would be tremendous for him to win that title,” Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said. “Oscar is recognized all over Mexico as a double Olympian. He’s very, very well thought of and the people in Tucson are crazy about him. There’s a whole delegation coming to Las Vegas to go to the fight and to talk to me about doing his first title defense in Tucson if he wins. We know this is a big fight for Valdez. It’s extraordinarily important and if he wins the title he will be very, very difficult to dislodge.”
Featherweight contender Oscar Valdez, right, wants to take advantage of his first title opportunity. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
When told that Valdez idolized Morales, Arum, who promoted Morales for most of his career, said he sees some similarities between them.

“I think their styles are somewhat similar in that they’re not wild-swinging guys,” Arum said. “They’re guys who throw straight punches and are effective. They have a style that’s what I call contained aggression.”

Arum said he takes satisfaction in bringing prospects from the amateurs to professional world titles. Top Rank has done it over and over and over for the past several decades and he is hoping Valdez can join the long list that includes Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, Miguel Cotto and many others.

“That’s our job. As a promoter that is our most important function that we do,” Arum said. “That’s why we are able to attract a lot of these prospects. They know we have a track record of succeeding.”

Valdez plans to do his part after scoring his biggest win in his last fight when he wiped out former featherweight world titlist Evgeny Gradovich in the fourth round of a dominant showing.

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“I definitely feel ready. I’m very excited,” Valdez said. “I think I’ve been ready for a shot at the world title so I’m relaxed. I just listened to my manager, Frank Espinoza. He’s an expert. I’m very grateful to him and to Top Rank for getting me this chance to fight for a world title.”
Valdez said he feels he has been ready for ages to fight for a title, going back to not long after he turned pro in late 2012. The reason is because he said he held his own in spirited sparring with top fighters such as Leo Santa Cruz, Orlando Salido and Lee Selby, all of whom won featherweight world titles.

“I know sparring is different than the fights but I felt I was ready,” Valdez said. “It was pretty good sparring. If I did good sparring I know I could do good in fights. I felt ready then but my manager didn’t at the time and said to be patient. Frank and Top Rank, they do their job and I do my job in the ring.”

Said Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti: “He’s ready. We all think he’s ready. If we didn’t think Oscar Valdez was ready for this title fight we wouldn’t put him in this position. We would have held him back, but there was no reason to.”

Now Valdez’s job is to take care of Rueda, 28, who has fought once previously in the United States but had all of his other bouts in Argentina against opponents with no name recognition.

Valdez does not know much about him other than having watched a few brief video clips but said that does not concern him because he always fought opponents in amateur tournaments with little knowledge of them ahead of time.

“What we do know is he is a hard-hitting fighter,” Valdez said. “But we have a plan A, B and C. My mentality is to beat Rueda. I’m very focused on this guy. I’m very focused on winning.”