VALDEZ-QUIGG
Quigg has everything to gain against Valdez, writes Elliot Worsell
Can the L.a-based Bury boy become a two-weight world title-holder?
SOMETIMES two fighters are just made for each other. Fighters like Oscar Valdez and Scott Quigg, for example, flip sides of the same coin, belong in a ring together, make sense together, and on Saturday (March 10), when they lock horns in Carson, California, will be twice as entertaining for having found one another.
On paper, Valdez-quigg is a WBO featherweight title fight, a Fight of the Year contender, and a sure-fire brawl between a promising Mexican who upholds the Mexican tradition – aggression, brawling, machismo – and a man from Bury who, on fighting style alone, could easily be mistaken for a Mexican.
For Valdez, the fight with Quigg represents the toughest test of a five-and-a-half year professional career, while for Quigg, a former WBA champion at superbantamweight, the fight with Valdez represents make or break time as a featherweight. Win this and the Englishman is back on the world stage, as a world champion no less, and in line for some mouth-watering opportunities down the road. Lose, however, and Quigg, now 29, might struggle to regroup and go again. History suggests British boxers travel to America to challenge top Us-based boxers for a host of reasons. They might have secured a number one contender spot and therefore have no choice. They might have been offered a life-changing sum of money. They might see it as a box to tick on their bucket list. But, whatever the motive, it has become easy to separate those who make the trip believing they are going to win from those who make it only in hope. Quigg, 34-1-2 (25), still smarting from a 2016 loss to Carl Frampton, certainly
falls into the former category. He’s fresh enough to be considered a force, especially as a featherweight, a division in which he has yet to lose, and has enough solid wins to show he’s a world-class operator capable of mixing with the best.
Moreover, he will have looked at Valdez and seen a champion whose undefeated record is as much a symbol of early learning as it is of great potential. Quigg isn’t foolish; nor is his new trainer, Freddie Roach. They know enough about Valdez to discern he is a quality featherweight, and perhaps a future star, but, equally, that the time is right to fight him. Get him when he’s green, before he realises the error of his ways.
Up to now, Valdez, 23-0 (19), has been near enough faultless as a pro. He has beaten men he was supposed to beat, impressively stopped former IBF champion Evgeny Gradovich in four rounds, and last year showed resilience and stamina in back-to-back distance fights with Miguel Marriaga and Genesis Servania. Yet he is also very much in the developmental stages and lessons are being learned on a fight-by-fight basis. Servania, for instance, was able to hit and hurt him early, dropping him in round four, and others have sensed, but been unable to capitalise on, similar openings.
In fact, it could be argued the Mexican is often caught between styles, unsure whether to do what comes naturally (slug it out) or do what he’s been taught and told (presumably box and move a bit more). In the end, he does something in between. He walks off to reload, looks relatively composed, and then, as if fed up of being patient, will explode with a ferocious combination or a single looping shot. There will be obligatory jabs, snappy and straight, but then there will be wild hooks to be the body, thrown as risky leads, and anything else he feels he can land. This makes him exciting. It also makes him vulnerable. In the blink of an eye, Valdez is liable to transition from controlled to dishevelled. It’s fun to watch.
It’s definitely what makes this fight so highly anticipated. After all, Quigg, like Marriaga and Servania, won’t take a backwards step, nor find himself befuddled by Valdez’s movement. He will instead look to exploit the Mexican’s inability to make up his mind.
Better yet, the Mancunian will have an easier time dragging Valdez into his type of fight than he did with Frampton two years ago. There are fewer dimensions to Valdez’s game, you see. Fewer nuances. He will move, no doubt, but it won’t take as long for Quigg to work his way into range, tempt Valdez into a brawl and begin throwing the kind of body shots that have been a fixture of his best wins.
Valdez, however, is 23-0 for a reason, and any plan to pin him down and make him unravel is easier said than done. His style, while rough, remains effective, and though he might occasionally be found wanting in terms of discipline and technique, he compensates for this with toughness, fighting spirit and tenacity.
Admittedly, given his flaws, there’s every chance the champion one day struggles against a boxer with ring craft or a brawler with one-punch power. But it’s hard to imagine Scott Quigg, a former super-bantamweight who can box and brawl, being well-versed enough in either of those departments to take Valdez’s title on foreign ground. He can certainly push him all the way, though.
THE VERDICT Quigg will have to produce the performance of his career to dethrone Valdez.