Power is a human’s ultimate quest, the pinnacle of enchanted dazzle, the exact precision of control. It is accuracy of human psychological impact, ascension in ranks of hierarchy, impact in physicality. Power is the ability to stop something, the ability to advance something, the game of push-pull enacted in settings of social and professional involvement. Powerful is overwhelming, powerful is crippling or inspiring, sedating or stimulating and force in and of itself. Presidents hold power. CEOs hold power. Statesmen and superintendents hold power, and swim in it.
Pugilists hold power as the overarching goal when applied to the prowess of individual imagery and as a smaller portion of that goal as a bodily trait. Power allows one to push, shove and collapse the will of a fellow fighter with large thudding shots that cripple body and neurological processes. Defense is great but power makes a better snapshot.
Slowly but surely, that power can become a weakness if relied upon in place of other boxing trades and crafts. Hitting hard is as good as the avoidance of being hit as hard. Hand speed with medium shots can outwork an occasional large bomb from a power hitter. A duck decreases damage as much as an uppercut enacts it.
The difference is that power is marketable and defense is not. Power in his fists is close to power in the pocketbook. It is that fundamental rule that gave way to an increase in requisite variety for Mike Tyson and George Foreman while having recently hampered the growth of Ronald “Winky” Wright. Floyd Mayweather, JR., would be an outlying exception to the rule, as his dynamic personality and past history of strength in his shots would deter his fall from grace only until recent bouts.
Edwin Valero, 22-0, 22 KO’s, is one beneficiary of the power-hungry boxing world. As shown by his perfect record, Valero can smash a brick house to pieces in less time than a ten round bout. The same applies to the head and body of his opponents, having crushed every single one of them inside the first and last round of the fight. Most (all but three) were smashed inside of one round.
Valero neglects defense but it has yet to matter in one of his fights because most of the men he has faced are and will forever be career bums in the sport of boxing. Valero holds a WRD score of 2.33, higher than that of either Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather, JR., yet would stand much higher on the totem pole if the combined record of his opposition was not 212-110 and mostly out of countries where boxing does not have the highest caliber of local fighter.
Part of that is not Valero’s fault exactly, as he is not licensed to fight in the US where the big bouts can be made. Valero’s right to fight in The States was placed on national suspension after an MRI revealed a head injury and subsequent operation that was the result of a motor cycle accident in the year 2000. The New York State Athletic Commission suspended his license and the ban was applied nationally. In a sport so badly in need of uniform national standards, one of the few that actually was upheld works for the negative and unethical purpose of blocking one of the most exciting and marketable fighters from paychecks and badly needed exposure from American fans.
One of the worst parts about missing out on Valero is not only that his skill is hidden from the US population but that his style would make for excellent fights against peers of the same caliber. Valero enters the boxing pocket with his hands down, in total neglect of defense and the thump of punches that comes with that carelessness. He is one of the fighters today that best defines and defends the right, duty, and advantage of not defending at all.
That flaw would likely come back to bite him in match ups with fundamentally sound swings. Unfortunately, we are currently blocked from knowing at all. There was a glimmer of hope when Manny Pacquiao Trainer, Freddie Roach, stated he though there would be a fight between Pacquiao and Valero since one could not be made between Pacquiao and Marco Antonio Barrera or Juan Manuel Marquez because of the business dispute/rivalry between Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and Bob Arum’s Top Rank.
In all likelihood, Roach was successful in sending a message with that statement that Pacquiao only had a few fights left to make and that the most dangerous would be the path to choose if Top Rank could not figure out a way to make peace. Now, instead of fighting Valero, Joel Casamayor or Juan Diaz in what would almost certainly be a Fight of the Year candidate, Pacquiao can fight Marquez or Barrera.
That leaves Valero without a partner in the whole mess. He is an ultimately dangerous fighter with little hope of finding an opening due to the dirty business of boxing. There are only a few ways around the current situation, and none will come easily.
Knock out Tomato Cans and be Patient
Valero could continue fighting the best fighters he can fight and dimply wait to see what happens. It would be easy to sit on his hands (unless he is using them to beat some poor guy’s head in) until ban is lifted and the US gets to see him in a match against another top-ranked contender. At only 25 years old, there is still plenty of prime time left in Valero’s career. That said, that time would be going to waste while he waited patiently on a corrupt ruling to be overturned. There is a chance that a big name fighter would eventually want to fight him overseas, a proposition that might force the Commission to see the tide and change the ruling, but there is no legally binding obligation for anyone to even begin approaching that fight. Again, Valero is one of the hardest hitters in the game and relatively unknown, a dangerous risk for small reward. The idea that someone would stake their reputation by swinging with him is highly improbable. Taking this approach is actually a stagnation because it is hardly an approach at all. There is no activity involved in doing nothing.
Change Sports
This is the most drastic step for Valero. A move to MMA might be a step to the side that would get him licensed and exposed to US fight fans. After building a bit of a base, he could switch back over to boxing, as it is his probably his more efficient sport.
This approach is highly, highly flawed and the worst of the options presented here. For one, it is speculative in that Valero has no background of Mixed Martial Arts. He could get placed in a pretzel or kicked in the teeth and become known as an MMA bum instead of a boxing champion. The risk of transferring to another sport gives him a chance to gain exposure in a sport that is currently enjoying a streak of popularity, but he might wind up helping others ride the wave more than he helps himself. Instead of stepping to his left or right into a different industry, he would do better to apply that idea inside of boxing with Option 3.
Play Politics with Promotion: Apply the Peter Principle
The Peter Principle, formulated and declared in a book by the same title written by Dr. Laurence J. Peter in 1968, states that “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” The oddity of applying such an idea in boxing is that the internal hierarchy of boxing, minus the business approach and corruption therein, actually involved no hierarchy at all. When two fighters meet, they can come from the same level of competition or two entirely different planes of the fight game, Contender vs. Bum. When one man goes down, it matters not what his economic level was prior to the bout but that he has defeated the competition.
If that is done with the power of an Edwin Valero, he climbs higher in the totem pole. That form of destruction is described by Peter as “Push.” “Push” is advancement and promotion by your own merits rather than by knowing the right people and finding the right patrons, an idea known as “Pull.”
Unfortunately, Valero’s business world has had its on version of a motorcycle accident with his opportunity to showcase boxing abilities. While he is good enough to climb within the somewhat anarchistic elements that makeup the inside of the ring, he is not allowed to step into that very ring where it is best publicized. In order to work his way inside, he might best be benefited by looking outside of TEIKEN Promotions to other companies in a powerful sidestep. The New York State Athletic Commission is an organizational hierarchy with any other than can be bought and sold with carrots and pattern breaks. They can be defeated mentally and overwhelmed by star power in the shinier, more popular boxing stars of today. Jumping promotion teams will offer him the representation of Arum or De La Hoya in getting things done inside of the US, an incalculable advantage over his current position. Furthermore, he would need only to jump sideways rather than climbing directly upward in order to successfully make the leap.
It is undeniable that Valero is a capitalist gold mine. He is all for broke, swinging and positioned to take back from the more efficient and brutal hitters in the fight game. His services currently belong to TEIKEN but it’s known by any boxing fans that business in the sport is fluid and contracts get broken. Valero can enjoy a mutually beneficial situation with a big name promoter and push his way onto the championship scene by taking on several big fights in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. His path to fame is imminent, if only he could move around an incompetent Commission. Red Tape is best cut by star power. The sooner Valero finds that power and utilizes it as a tool, the better off he will be.
