Oscar Valdez relished the aftermath of proving a lot of doubtful wrongs on Saturday night, as his KO victory over Miguel Berchelt was as complete and as impressive a performance as the new WBC lightweight junior world champion could have put together.
After 10 rounds, most of them dictating the fight in the direction he wanted to take, Valdez surprised the boxing world even more by landing a devastating punch in the face of Berchelt, who knocked out Berchelt and ended the fight in just one second left in the round. .
Brett Okamoto and Michael Rothstein share the biggest moments of the night in Las Vegas and design what will come next for the two fighters, as well as the Top Rank Boxing schedule going forward. Ben Baby reacts to Adrien Broner’s return to the ring for the first time in almost two years as well.
After the biggest victory of your career, what’s next for Oscar Valdez?
Rothstein: Valdez fought the perfect fight. An absolutely perfect fight. From the first round, everything Valdez did was one step ahead of Miguel Berchelt, ending with a violent knockout with a punch in the 10th round, a left hook right in the middle of Berchelt’s face.
How the fight ended summed up how Valdez fought throughout the night. He dodged a punch from Berchelt, got up and attacked to send Berchelt to the screen.
It was a consistent combination of speed and Valdez’s effective landing hooks throughout the night. The strategy surprised Berchelt in the first two rounds, earned Valdez a knockdown in the fourth round, a second knockdown in the ninth and, finally, the knockout in the tenth.
Until then, the only thing that would have prevented Valdez from winning the title was a miracle by Berchelt (37-2-0, 33 KO’s), who didn’t seem to have left much for a round or two before that moment.
This victory strengthens the career curriculum of Valdez (29-0, 23 KO’s), who now becomes the starter in his second division after six WBO featherweight world title defenses. Now that he is a title holder again, the new WBC lightweight junior world champion has options.
Your next potential opponent could be sitting next to the ring. The fight for money for Valdez could very well be against Shakur Stevenson, the undefeated rising star who is also part of the Top Rank group of fighters. He is also the No. 2 fighter in the WBC division, so it could make sense from that point of view as well.
Congratulations champion @ oscarvaldez56 I respect what you did tonight I was surprised .. It is just 1 FIGHT to do now!
– Shakur Stevenson (@ShakurStevenson) February 21, 2021
Stevenson-Valdez would be an interesting contrast of styles and a fight that could put fans in the seats in the middle of the year. Valdez was also open to this after the fight, even suggesting in his post-fight interview.
It is the struggle to do and it seems to make more sense in the immediate future. The other option, if Valdez decides he wants to try to start unifying the division, will be to watch the Jamel Herring-Carl Frampton fight later this spring and wait for the winner.
But even with that fight out there, Stevenson seems to be the smartest way to go.
How did Berchelt lose and what’s next for him?
Okamoto: Berchelt did not lose his title as much as Valdez took it from him. We will make this very clear immediately. Valdez looked like a master from the start and Berchelt was stunned and fading for the fourth round, when Valdez put him on skates with one left and got his first knockdown. Valdez may have finished with him right there if the bell hadn’t rang. Berchelt showed a lot of heart in the following rounds, and tried to turn the tide with nothing more than pure pressure and power.
It was clear, however, that he did not have an answer, at least not on Saturday, to Valdez’s changes in speed and posture. Berchelt seemed lost from the start. He never felt comfortable in his counterattack, and more or less abandoned it after the fourth round, when he committed himself to a high pressure approach. At 29, he is still one of the best junior lightweights in the world, but unfortunately he will have to prove that he is still the case next year or after after a result like this. He will have to prove that the devastating nature of that loss does not change his ability to receive a punch, or his willingness to receive a punch.
If and when he faces another fast and technical boxer like Valdez – or Vasiliy Lomachenko, who he could have called up if Saturday had been different – he will need to prove that he learned from this disaster. He will probably need some kind of rematch fight, an opponent who is not in the top five in the division. If all goes well, the title fight will not be far away.
Maybe he thinks about weight gain a little too, which would also have been a post-fight topic if he had won, but there’s no reason to think that 130 pounds still can’t be a great home for Berchelt. But there will be unavoidable questions that he will need to answer when he returns.
Boxing needs fans again
Okamoto: I was in the ring for tonight’s fight in Las Vegas. I thought this was going to be a night the fans would miss – I just thought it was due to a back and forth war, not a one-sided masterclass from Valdez. But regardless, the reality is the same. Boxing missed its fans so much tonight.
There was a moment before the strike, when the MGM ballroom darkened and house music played. It was one of those moments that lets everyone in the building know that the main event fighters are about to walk. I experienced that feeling in a crowded arena hundreds of times, and I can’t even put into words how weird it was on Saturday. It was so quiet that you could hear individual conversations taking place in the room.
When the fighters came out and were announced – honestly, I think Top Rank does a good job of manufacturing energy as you can – but it’s hardly identifiable for a real crowd. And, of course, the fight itself, when Valdez took Berchelt down in the fourth and Berchelt was trying to win the next rounds when he was still injured, a crowd would have added a lot to that. Hopefully, we are close to that.
Top Rank believes that Saturday was its last night in the bubble. The promotion plans to move to Florida and / or Oklahoma for its upcoming events in April, and then be back in Vegas in May – at a time when, hopefully, fans will be able to attend again.
Gabriel Flores Jr. finds a big knockout as growing prospects reach the Berchelt-Valdez round
Rothstein: Gabriel Flores Jr. looked less than sharp. Jayson Velez was hitting some punches and putting together some combinations. But then, in the sixth round, Flores, 20, showed why it is considered a rising possibility in the junior lightweight division.
A right on Velez’s head sent him down once. A wave of punches ended the fight moments later, ensuring an important victory for the Stockton, California native. It was a great showcase in the main co-event, catching fans who called a little earlier for the title fight.
The fact that Flores managed to knock out – the first since the knockout in the third round of Eduardo Pereira Dos Reis, on May 4, 2019 – was an added bonus, since it was only the second knockout in his last 14 fights. He showed some of Flores’ combination of speed and power. After the fight, Flores said he “sent a statement that I am ready for a world title.”
This seems a little early for him, considering the strength of the division. In addition to Berchelt and Valdez, there are also Shakur Stevenson, Leo Santa Cruz, Joseph Diaz Jr., Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov, Jamel Herring and more in the division as well.
But it was an impressive display that should give him a real chance at a high level opponent. If Flores wins what fight, so maybe there will be a chance for the title in the near future, especially since the IBF belt is vacant.
The other two perspectives on the undercard – junior welterweight Elvis Rodriguez (11-0-1, 10 KO) and Xander Zayas welterweight (7-0, 5 KO) – had rounds, which was critical to both of his developments with Rodriguez in 12 professional fights and Zayas in seven professional fights and many short nights so far in their careers.
For Rodriguez especially, it is the first time that he has gone far in a fight and that fight should give him a good amount of tape to work on while he works to improve some key elements of the ring. Rodriguez admitted this after the fight against a fair game Luis Alberto Veron (18-3-2, 9 KO’s), saying he needs to go back to the gym and work to loosen his hands more.
This kind of learning experience can be beneficial a year or two later, when the stakes get higher.
What did Saturday’s fight against Jovanie Santiago tell us about the current state of Adrien Broner?
Drink: Saturday night was Adrien Broner in a nutshell. He showed flashes in the ring against Jovanie Santiago in a unanimous but controversial decision. Broner landed 100 punches less than Santiago and once again seemed slow in the ring. And perhaps his most fun times of the night came in the post-fight interview, when Broner’s turbulent personality was clearly not rusty, despite the lack of action.
In other words, it was the peak of the Broner. And at this point, that’s not enough to challenge any elite 140 pounds, where he wants to fight, and 147 pounds, where he really fights.
Broner’s best moments came in the intermediate rounds, including one in the eighth round, when a Broner hook made Santiago do the divisions and he was inches from touching the screen.
But Santiago recovered in the 12th round and caused the fight to intensify, at the very least. Even though there must have been a great chasm between the two men, it was not apparent on Saturday. And yes, Broner is coming out of a long layoff, but when he lost his weight by three pounds and the fight shifted to the welterweight limit at the end of the fight week, his dedication to being in fighting form is hard to believe.
With his victory (featuring some very questionable scorecards, including an inexplicable 117-110 from Peter Hary), Broner probably secured at least one other considerable payment. At this point in his career, it is probably the best he can ask for.