By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten #1 WBO lightweight contender Felix Verdejo (22-0, 15 KOs) will be fighting this Friday night in a tune-up fight against Oliver Flores (27-2-2, 17 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round fight at the Coliseo Roberto Clemente, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
With a win over Flores, Verdejo will likely be fighting for a world title against WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan on June 10 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Verdejo’s promoter Bob Arum has already reportedly booked the arena for the Flanagan-Verdejo fight.
Verdejo just needs to do his part against the 25-year-old Flores by beating him and hopefully looking good in the process. It’s important that Verdejo shine in this fight, because his next fight will be for a world title against Flanagan.
The Verdejo vs. Flores fight will be shown on Solo Boxeo” (UniMas). The start time is at 11:00 p.m. ET/PT. It should be a good fight even though it shapes up to be a mismatch. Verdejo is so talented, and he’s facing a guy that hasn’t fought in a long time in Flores.
This is the first fight back for the 23-year-old Verdejo since his motorcycle accident last summer on August 7 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Verdejo suffered cuts and bruises in that accident. He was extremely fortunate not to have been seriously hurt. The accident sidetracked Verdejo from getting a title shot against WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan.
Verdejo likely would have fought Flanagan by now and beaten him. Instead of being a champion, Verdejo is taking a tune-up fight against a fighter that hasn’t fought since 2015 in Flores, who lost his last fight to former WBA Super World super featherweight champion Takashi Uchiyama on December 31, in 2015. Uchiyama is no longer even a world champion. Flores has also been knocked out in the past by Miguel Berchelt by a 2nd round knockout on November 9, 2012. Verdejo should be able to take care of Flores fairly easily if he wants to get him out of there quickly.
Verdejo has been taking it easy since his motorcycle accident. He’s in good shape now, and ready to resume his boxing career. The World Boxing Organization still has Verdejo ranked No.1 in their organization, so the chances are still there if he wants to fight Flanagan. Besides that, the IBF has Verdejo ranked No.4 with them.
If Verdejo wants to fight iBF champion Robert Easter Jr., he has the option of getting that fight in the near future. I’m not sure that Easter Jr. would be an easier fight for Verdejo than Flanagan though. Verdejo would seem to match up better with the light hitting Flanagan than he would with the 5’11” Easter Jr., who is both tall and powerful.
Flanagan, 5’9”, tends to put on a lot of weight after he rehydrates for his fights. He ends up looking like a welterweight by the time he gets inside the ring. That’s the main thing Flanagan has going for him. Verdejo matches up well against Flanagan, because he has size, hand speed and punching power going for him. Flanagan
It should be interesting to see what the 2012 Puerto Rican Olympian Verdejo can do against Flores. There might be some ring rust with Verdejo. We’ll have to see. Verdejo is one of those fighters that sometimes holds himself back in his fights. He can make his fights really easy if he were to fight at a faster pace, but he tends to takes things slowly, as if he doesn’t fully realize how much better he is than his competition.
Verdejo said his to ESPN.com about his fight against Flores:
“I’m 100 percent physically and mentally ready. My future depends on my performance against Oliver Flores and that’s why this Friday I’m going to show that I’m more than ready to become a world champion,” said Verdejo.
Well, hopefully Verdejo gets past Flores and looks good doing so. This fight is likely the last one before Verdejo fights for a world title against Flanagan. The title shot is long overdue, because Verdejo has been building his career for that moment for a long time and he’s finally on the verge of getting that title shot.
As long as Verdejo doesn’t suffer any injuries or lose the fight to Flores, he should be set to get a crack at Flanagan after this fight. Verdejo has the boxing skills and the punching power to beat Flanagan. He just needs the opportunity to face him. It’s good that the WBO has kept Verdejo at No.1 all this time. That makes things easier, because without that No.1 ranking, it’s hard to imagine Flanagan giving him a title shot at his WBO belt.
“They say he looks terrific,” Verdejo’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank said to espn.com. “Now do I know that for sure? No, but they’re reliable people — (manager and trainer) Ricky Marquez and (Top Rank publicist) Gardy (Lopez), who’s down there. The proof of the pudding will be Friday night. But they say he’s perfect as far as the health is concerned, but when you get into a fight, who knows?”
Flores, 25, has some pop in his punches, and he could make things difficult for Verdejo if he can land his shots. Flores has a lot of knockouts on his record, but unfortunately most of those knockouts have come against lower level fighters rather than top caliber guys. Flores hasn’t beaten any top level guys during his career. That doesn’t mean that Flores can punch and that he doesn’t have a lot of talent.
It just means that he’s come up short when he’s fought the only two good fighters on his resume. He lost to the best that he’s fought, but he’s beaten everyone else. Flores is still not a pushover or someone that Verdejo can afford to take lightly in there. If he overlooks this guy, he could wind up losing the fight. Verdejo’s stock went down last year when he struggled to beat the 6’1” William Silva by a 10 round unanimous decision.
The judges scored the fight to Verdejo by a 10 round decision, but the fight was a lot closer than the scores handed down by the judges. Since then, Verdejo failed to impress against Jose Luis Rodriguez in winning a 10 round unanimous decision last April. In Verdejo’s last fight, he stopped Juan Jose Martinez by a 5th round knockout. That was a step down in competition for Verdejo from the Silva fight.
Verdejo has the talent to make the Flores fight as easy as he wants it to be. He’s just got to let his hands go and fight with some urgency, because he takes it easy on his opponents much of the time, and he lets his opponents hang around rather than getting them out of there.
Also on Friday’s Verdejo-Floes card, unbeaten featherweight Christopher Diaz (19-0, 11 KOs) will be in action against Efrain Esquivias (17-5-1, 10 KOs) in the co-feature bout. That should be a good fight.