Now that he has signed up with Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, we should finally get a look at Edwin Valero, who just may be the most exciting fighter on the planet.
Valero is the fighter from Venezuela who knocked out his first 18 opponents in the first round, but was unable to get a license to fight in the United States because of an irregularity in a 2004 brain scan due to an old motorcycle accident injury. Well, he was granted a boxing license by the Texas athletic commission in time to win his second world title two weeks ago, when he annihilated Antonio Pitalua in two rounds. Valero is now 25-0, all by knockout.
“I believe in Edwin Valero,” said Arum after the Pitalua fight. “What you have seen tonight is something really special, something out of the ordinary. … You’ve seen the emergence of a star with super powers in both hands, someone who can handle any lightweight in the world.”
Yes, Arum is his promoter and expected to say wonderful things about his fighters. And yes, piling up a lot of knockouts in Venezuela doesn’t necessarily mean a lot. But Valero has continued to punch out opponents with monotonous regularity as the quality rises. Pitalua has a reputation of being a tough guy himself, having kayoed 40 of his 48 opponents while compiling a 46-2 record going into the Valero fight, which was for the WBC lightweight title vacated by Manny Pacquiao (who fights Ricky Hatton May 2).
But Pitalua was no match for Valero. After a quiet, feel-out first round, Valero, a southpaw with knockout power in either hand, decked Pitalua three times in the second before referee Larry Cole stopped the carnage 49 seconds in.
Valero formerly held the WBA junior lightweight title before moving up to the lightweight division, where the big names and big fights are. In two title defenses as junior lightweight champ, he stopped Zaid Zavaleta in three and Takehiro Shimada in seven.
In rating Valero fifth among pound-for-pound punchers (before the Pitalua fight), Ring magazine said he is “a skilled boxer who’s fallen in love with his own power and chooses not to use much science.” Hey, 25 KOs in 25 fights, you can’t argue with that.
In any case, Valero says he is ready for the marquee names in boxing.
“If the opportunity arises to fight either (Manny Pacquiao or Juan Miguel Marquez), I would like Marquez,” said Valero, whom you’d never guess was a professional fighter if you saw him in street clothes and the eyeglasses he wears. “He is very technical and a warrior in the ring and I would like to discuss making this happen.
“But there’s that so-called monster from the Philippines I want a shot at, too,” he added. “I’m ready to fight anyone.”
No one I know of has yet compared him to another lightweight with hands of stone, but the comparison to Roberto Duran would appear inevitable if he continues his Sherman-like march through the lightweights. He just may be “something really special.”
“HE WAS LOOOOONG’
Speaking of emerging stars in the pugilistic world, Paul Williams did what Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley and Jermaine Taylor could not do: give Winky Wright a sound beating.
One of the best defensive fighters in the game but coming off a 21-month layoff, Wright could not cope with Williams relentless windmill attack last Saturday night in Las Vegas. Two of the judges had Williams winning 11 of the 12 rounds, while the third scored it a shutout.
Williams (37-1, 27 knockouts) isn’t called the most feared man in boxing because of his punching power, which is adequate. What scares opponents is the fact that Williams is something of a boxing freak ? a 6-2 southpaw welterweight/middleweight with an enormous 82-inch wingspan, who throws punches in bunches from all directions and never stops.
The compu-box numbers had Williams throwing 1,086 punches, an average of more than 90 a round. He started with 104 punches in the first round and looked just as fresh in the 12th with 106.
“I knew he was going to throw a lot of punches,” said Wright, “but not that many. And he throws them from a distance where you can’t counter. He was just so long. I figured he was long, but he was looooong.”
Williams, a two-time welterweight champion and the current WBO junior middleweight interim champ, is also unique in that he has fought in three different weight divisions in his last four fights. He weighed 157 (middleweight) Saturday night, but says he would like to go back down to welterweight (147) to fight WBA champ Shane Mosley.
The bottom line is he’ll fight anybody willing to get in the ring with him.
JABS AND HOOKS
The welterweight unification title fight between WBO champ Miguel Cotto and IBF champ Joshua Clottey is set for June 13 at Madison Square Garden. … Olympic alternate Danny O’Connor of Framingham (5-0) has been added to the Jermaine Taylor-Carl Froch undercard at the MGM Grand Theater at Foxwoods on April 25. … The Wladimir Klitschko-David Haye title fight will be June 20 at a 61,000-seat soccer stadium in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. … The rematch between WBA heavyweight champ Nikolai Valuev and WBA champion in recess Ruslan Chagaev is set for May 30, either in Germany or Helsinki, Finland.
