By Esteban Garduno: I almost feel sorry for World Boxing Council interim lightweight champion Antonio DeMarco (23-1-1, 17 KO’s), because he has the bad luck of facing WBC lightweight champion Edwin Valero (26-0, 26 KO’s), who may be the most purest puncher in all of boxing right now. DeMarco, 24, really has his hands full this Saturday night with the big punching Valero when they meet up in a 12 round championship bout at the Arena Monterrey, Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.

Valero, 28, has a perfect knockout string going and it’s not by accident that he’s compiled that impressive list of KOs. Valero punches very hard at all times doesn’t need to load up. He’s naturally a very strong puncher whether he’s trying to hit hard or not, but what makes Valero even more dangerous is that he puts continuous unrelenting pressure on his opponents until they eventually are taken out.

I wasn’t always a fan of Valero. I saw a lot of flaws in his game, particularly with his lack of defense and hand speed. Valero looks clumsy at times and wide open with his offense. He’s very easy to hit because he doesn’t ever stop coming forward for an instant.

Valero’s whole game is centered around his offense and it makes him vulnerable to getting hit cleanly quite often. The problem is his opponents are often in the retreat mode after tasting his power early in the fight and aren’t in the position to take advantage of Valero’s poor defense. When you have a huge slugger like Valero laying into you with devastating shots, it makes it hard to stop and trade without getting ones head taken off by his huge shots.

DeMarco is a good puncher in his own right, and has knocked out 17 of his 24 opponents. However, there’s no comparison between the power that Valero possesses and compared to DeMarco. Valero is in a whole different league, and I can’t see DeMarco being able to stand up to those kinds of heavy shots for long without folding up. In the last year, Valero seems to be getting better and better. He destroyed Antonio Pitalua, a huge puncher himself, in a 2nd round knockout in April 2009.

Pitalua has one-punch knockout power, yet Valero seemed to thrive on standing toe-to-toe with him and mowing him down in two rounds. And most recently, Valero destroyed Hector Velazquez in a 7th round stoppage in December. Velazquez was running for his life from the 1st round and getting blasted with heavy shots every time Valero could catch up to him. Finally, the fight was eventually before Velazquez got really hurt. He wouldn’t have been able to take much more punishment without getting taken out on his back.

DeMarco doesn’t have the style needed to keep him in this fight for long. DeMarco is a slugger like Valero, and he’s going to probably try to trade with him. I can’t see anything good coming from that strategy, but it’s probably only thing that DeMarco knows how to do. He’s not much of a boxer and if he tries to learn now, it probably won’t work anyway against Valero, because he cuts off the ring well and is especially good at quickly closing the distance between himself and his opponent. Valero won’t be stopped by jabs. Valero is going to have to just stand and trade and hope for the best.

Prediction: Valero by 5th round TKO.