By Allen Fox: WBO Latino lightweight champion Felix Verdejo (21-0, 14 KOs) will be fighting tonight against Juan Jose Martinez (25-2, 17 KOs) in a showcase bout on HBO Boxing After Dark at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Verdejo-Martinez fight is the co-feature bout on the Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Roman “Rocky” Martinez card.
The World Boxing Organization ranks Verdejo highly at #2 at lightweight. He cannot afford to lose this fight if he wants to keep in place for an eventual title shot against WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan.
Verdejo, 23, will likely need to become the WBO mandatory challenger before he gets a title shot against Flanagan because he’s too good to be given one just like that. Flanagan’s management obviously wants to keep him the champion for as long as possible, and a fight against Verdejo would be seen as a risky thing.
The 29-year-old Martinez does not have much hand speed to speak of for a lightweight. However, he has won his last six fights since losing to Rey Bautista by a 7th round stoppage in September 2014. Verdejo has not knocked out an opponent since his 2nd round knockout win over Josenilson Dos Santos last year in December 2015. That was the perfect opponent for Verdejo because he was right there for him to land his big shots. Verdejo has not looked so great in his last two fights against William Silva and Jose Luis Rodriguez.
This fight should give Top Rank an indication if Verdejo is ready to step him against the big boys in the division. He’s still pretty young to be fighting the really high quality fighters at lightweight, and they might want to take things slowly for a while longer with him before they test him against one of the champions.
Silva was out-boxing Verdejo at times with his skills and size. What saved Verdejo was his hand speed and punching power that enabled him to get the better of Silva when it counted. However, Verdejo hardly looked tough in that fight, and that was the worrisome part.
Verdejo needs to be tough for him to be able to compete against the best lightweights in the division. It’s not enough for him to be just fast and power. He’s got to be able to take big shots as well for him to be able to beat the best at lightweight.
Martinez will very likely look to put a lot of pressure on Verdejo to see if he can wear him down and score a knockout. Martinez has looked good recently in beating Emanuel Lopez, Jairo Lopez, Edgar Puerta, John Carlo Aparcio, and Bryan Flores. Of course, none of those fighters is remotely as talented as Verdejo, so the victories mean very little.
If Martinez is going to win tonight, he’s going to win by being aggressive and turning the fight into a war so that he can break down the much younger Verdejo. It’s not likely that Martinez will be able to pull this off, but it’s possible given how bad Verdejo looked in his last two fights.