by Jason Kim: on Saturday night, World Boxing Council lightweight champion Edwin Valero (26-0, 26 KO’s) will be attempting to keep his perfect knockout string alive when he faces Antonio DeMarco (23-1-1, 17 KO’s) in a title fight at the Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. For many boxing fans in the United States, this will be the first time that they will be the first time that they’ve seen Valero.

Many of them have heard of them, especially about his incredible power, but few have seen him fight before. Showtime will be showing the bout on Saturday night against one of their prized fighters, the 24-year-old DeMarco. Antonio has a lot of things going for him in this match-up with Valero, such as a 2 1/2 height advantage, an advantage in youth being four years younger than the 28-year-old Valero.

DeMarco also has a three inch reach advantage going for him as well. This may or may not be enough for him to out-box Valero from the outside. DeMarco is very unlikely going to try and trade shots with the hard-hitting Valero if he can help it. However, even if DeMarco decides to fight on the outside for the entire 12 rounds, he’s going to have to be sturdy enough to fight Valero off, because he’s like an attack dog with his opponents.

Valero goes right after them and doesn’t give them much space to do anything. They might want to fight on the outside, but Valero turns the fights into a brawl none the less. DeMarco has to make sure he can keep moving as much as possible, because if he makes the mistake of stopping for any length of time, Valero will trap him and force him into a dog fight that DeMarco isn’t really suited for.

The boxing fans that are familiar with DeMarco’s fights know that he’s mostly a slugger by nature. DeMarco first and foremost tries to slug with his opponents. However, he can box at times when he needs to. The trick on Saturday night is whether DeMarco can become exclusively a boxer, because he might be too slender to hold up under a war with a puncher like Valero without getting taken out.