Jaw Dropping Performance By Oscar Valdez; Fight Manager Frank Espinoza “Weighs In”
By William Trillo
The rumblings started early on Saturday…Scott Quigg had no intentions of stepping on a scale. It was just a day earlier that Quigg came in three pounds overweight and threw away his WBO Featherweight title shot against the champ Oscar Valdez.
Quigg lost his chance at a title but after being fined the fight was allowed to take place. The problem now was just how much would he weight come fight time? That question was not going to get officially answered. That meant Valdez could have chose not to fight him and not suffered any consequences outside of the fact he would not be collecting his payday purse.
Valdez would have none of that and no matter the “stay safe” advice he might have been given Valdez took the warriors route and said he wanted to fight Quigg that evening.
That decision gave boxing fans one heck of a thrilling and bloody battle that truly was a lot closer than the wide unanimous decision score in favor of Valdez revealed. Along the way Valdez suffered a fractured jaw for his trouble. As Top Rank’s Lee Samuels stated, “This was a brutal fight!”
I spoke with Valdez manager Frank Espinoza on Sunday. Of course he was thrilled with the heart and courage of his young champion who came out victorious, but he also expressed concern for a system that may need a bit of tweaking for the safety of the fighters.
Said Espinoza, “Oscar showed he is truly a world class champion against Quigg and the rest of the division needs to take note. Oscar came into the ring that night at 135 pounds and Quigg came in at 142 or more. After coming in three pounds overweight on Friday Quigg was not willing to re-weigh on Saturday, yet Oscar being the champion he is was willing to fight on. You saw the result, Oscar came out on top but he suffered a broken job while facing a much bigger man. The safety of all fighters needs to be taken seriously. I hope the commission will take a look at this situation and change their rules to make it mandatory for fighters who come in overweight the day before the fight to have to re-weigh on fight day with no exceptions. We have to keep the fighters safety in mind.”
I agree with Espinoza. Fighters these days are making it a calculated habit to not make weight in order to have the upper hand come fight night. One only has to look back at Salido vs. Lomachenko or Castillo vs. Corrales 2 to know a few pounds can make all the difference in these high profile fights.
I too hope all boxing commissions will take a look at this situation and adjust their rules to not only make it an even playing field for the fighters but more importantly protect the fighters who trained their butts off in the gym in order to comply with the contracted weights.
Nothing less should be accepted.
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