By Eric Baldwin: In an incredibly dominant performance, undefeated #1 WBO featherweight Oscar Valdez (21-0, 18 KOs) totally obliterated a badly over-matched Matias Carlos Adrian Rueda (26-1, 23 KOs) in stopping him in the 2nd round to capture the vacant WBO featherweight title on Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Fighting in the co-feature bout on the Terence Crawford vs. Viktor Postol card on HBO pay-per-view, Valdez, 25, dropped the over-matched 28-year-old Argentinian Rueda two times in the 2nd round with hard shots to the midsection. The fight was halted by referee Russell Mora. The time of the stoppage was at 2:18 of the round.
Valdez, 25, hurt Rueda twice with left hooks to the head in round one. Near the end of the round, Valdez wobbled Rueda with a scorching right to the head.
In round two, Rueda was knocked down with a left to the body that caused him to go down in a delayed reaction. Valdez then teed off on Rueda with heavy shots with both hands until knocking him down with another left to the body. Referee Russell More than decided to stop the contest at this point.
This was supposed to have been a match-up that was competitive, but it turned out to be about as competitive as watching an over-matched sparring partner get beaten to a pulp. The little known Argentinian Rueda came into the fight with an unbeaten record filled with no names from his home country in Argentina. The boxing world should have realized that there was something not right about this fight due to Rueda’s inflated resume. He didn’t have the names on his resume that would suggest that the fight would be a competitive one. Sure enough, it was a terrible mismatch from the opening bell, As Valdez immediately rushed across the ring and started to pummel a nearly helpless Rueda with shot after shot.
With the win, it’s going to be interesting to see where Valdez goes from here. His promoters at Top Rank might have a hard time finding opponents for Valdez to fight. It’s not as if Top Rank can match Valdez against the likes of WBC champion Gary Russell Jr. or WBA champions Leo Santa Cruz and Jesus Andres Cuellar. Likewise, they can forget about putting him in with IBF champion Lee Selby. It’s more than just the promotional great wall that will likely keep those fights from taking place, but more so the fact that Valdez is just too dangerous for his own good. What this means is that he likely won’t become a big star for lack of competition,. Without him being able to fight the big names in the division, he’ll be stuck fighting the obscure contenders and those guys aren’t going to make him a star or even close a star.
It’s too bad that Top Rank didn’t match Valdez against Vaysl Lomachenko when he was the WBO featherweight champion. Top Rank could have made that fight if they had wanted to. Instead, they’re keeping Lomachenko and Valdez in separate lanes. It’s likely they’re doing this so that they have two separate revenue streams.