By Manuel Perez: Former World Boxing Association super featherweight champion Edwin Valero (25-0, 25 KOs) kept his perfect knockout string going with a 2nd round TKO over 39-year-old Antonio Pitalua (46-4, 40 KOs) tonight to grab the vacant World Boxing Council (WBC) lightweight title at the Frank Erwin Center, in Austin, Texas.
Taking it somewhat easy in the opening round, Valero, 27, suddenly turned up the heat in the 2nd round, landing a huge right hook to the head of Pitalua, sending him into the ropes face first where he then slid down to the canvas. The shot was thrown hard by Valero and it seemed as if Pitalua wasn’t prepared for the power of the shot, because Valero hadn’t loaded up with his shots in the opening round.
Pitalua probably should have stayed down, because he had no chance after this. He got up, though and was quickly put down for a second time. Again, he got up and was met with a storm of shots from Valero, sending Pitalua down for the final time. Referee Lawrence Cole then moved in and stopped the bout at 0:49 of the 2nd round.
Valero, from Venezuela, seemed to have lost none of his huge power in moving up from the super featherweight division. However, it’s still hard to tell how powerful Valero is because most of his opposition have been 2nd and 3rd tier opponents without the ability to take much of a shot.
Even though Valero got the win, he looked hardly unbeatable as a fighter. His hand speed was slow; he fought flat-footed most of the time and stood straight up in a European style. In comparison to better fighters in the lightweight division like Juan Manuel Marquez, Juan Diaz, Urbano Antillon, Anthony Peterson and Yuri Romanov, Valero looked much less skilled.
I seriously doubt that Valero could beat any of them, because his boxing skills are rather ordinary to say the least. Valero seems to win most of his fights by landing some big shots against lower level fighters. It’s said that the 39-year-old Pitalua is the best opponent of Valero’s seven year pro career, because Valero should have fought much better opponents by this point in his career.
Unfortunately, he’s been hidden away in Japan for the past three years facing less than impressive opponents. Right now, I would pick Colombian knockout artist Breidis Prescott (21-0, 18 KOs) to beat Valero. Prescott shows more skills, has better power in every punch and has the height and reach advantage over Valero.
It seems to me that Valero is getting much of his press because of his perfect knockout record, but if you put a fighter like Prescott in against the same opponents as Valero, I have no doubts that Prescott would also have a record filled with nothing but knockouts.
In the lightweight division, Valero will have plenty of good opponents like Amir Khan, Breidis Prescott, Joel Casamayor, and Marco Antonio Barrera with which he can test his ability.
“I really demonstrated that I have power in either of my hands,” Valero said after the fight. “I said in the press conference that as soon as he [Pitalua] made a mistake, I could land one good punch and he would go – Not just him but anybody.”
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