Oscar Valdez vs. Matias Carlos Adrian Rueda this Saturday night

By Boxing News - 07/22/2016 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: #1 WBO Oscar Valdez (19-0, 17 KOs) and #2 WBO Matias Carlos Adrian Rueda (26-0, 23 KOs) will be fighting it out this Saturday night for the vacant WBO World featherweight title in the co-feature bout on the Terence Crawford vs. Viktor Postol card on HBO pay-per-view at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is the 25-year-old Valdez’s moment in the sun to shine after four years as a pro. Valdez’s promoters at Top Rank haven’t thrown him in with the dangerous guys like Vasyl Lomachenko, Nicholas Walters and Gary Russell Jr.

Valdez has competed in the Olympics twice in taking part in 2008 and 2012. He was eliminated both times by superior fighters. As a pro, Valdez has found things a lot easier, as he’s not been matched against the high quality fighters as of yet. Valdez did defeat former IBF featherweight champion Evgeny Gradovich by a 4th round knockout last April. However, Gradovich hasn’t been the same fighter since fighting to a 12 round draw against Jayson Velez in November 2014. Beating Gradovich now isn’t such a big deal because his career has really tanked in the last two years.

Top Rank is hoping the 25-year-old Valdez can become a star at featherweight, because that would add to their growing number of young stars. Just how much stardom Valdez will be able to achieve at featherweight remains to be seen.

It’s not exactly a popular division with casual boxing fans, and there aren’t enough hardcore fight fans to make Valdez a huge star. He might need to try and move up in weight at some point to super featherweight, lightweight and then finally light welterweight if he wants to become a big star. If he stays at featherweight, he’ll be limiting his potential.

Valdez and the 28-year-old Argentinian Rueda will be fighting for the recently vacated WBO featherweight title that Vasyl Lomachenko gave up when he moved up to super featherweight. Lomachenko had the right idea of moving up in weight rather than staying at featherweight.

Valdez and Rueda will get a lot of attention with their fight being in the co-feature bout. However, the unfortunate part about that is the fact that the fight will be on HBO PPV, and the amount of fans that will be seeing the fight on HBO. There isn’t expected to be a lot of fans that will be purchasing the card, which goes for $49.99. However, Valdez could get seen on replay the following week when HBO will televise it on regular non-PPV HBO.

“I’m living every moment and enjoying every day,” said Valdez via RingTV.com. “Ever since I was a kid I dreamed about getting the WBO belt and I’m very close to achieving it.”
Valdez didn’t have the same kind of success that two-time Olympic gold medalist Lomachenko had as an amateur. However, amateur success doesn’t always translate to the pro ranks due to it being a completely different sport in the pros.

“I have nothing but respect for Rueda but when we get in the ring we’re going to try and knock each other’s heads off,” Valdez said. “I’m going to do whatever I can to bring the belt back to Mexico.”

This is Valdez’s big chance to make a name for himself on Saturday night if he can beat Rueda. If he blows it like he did twice in the Olympics, then he’ll need to go in another direction.