Despite his opponent coming in overweight, fighting under a rain shower and with a broken jaw, Oscar Valdez managed to retain his WBO featherweight title.
Valdez defeated former world champion Scott Quigg in a hard-fought battle to keep his title by unanimous decision (118-110, 117-111, 117-111) in the main event of a Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
The fight starts off with Valdez outlanding Quigg in power punches in the first few rounds, but Quigg did throw his own head-rattling punches. One of those punches thrown by Quigg actually broke Valdez’s jaw in the fifth round, shifting the momentum of the fight to the challenger at times.
Quigg’s extra weight allowed him to handle Valdez’s offense, but both men came out throwing hard punches that left each fighter damaged bruised. Valdez had a broken jaw and Quigg had to deal with a cut over his left eye. According to CompuBox, Valdez landed 238 of 914 punches (26 percent), while Quigg finished with 143 of 595 blows (24 percent). Despite the relatively low punch percentage, almost every power punch thrown by each man left them bloody and exhausted by the end of the fight.
Although the fight took place, Quigg was unable to win the WBO title. Quigg was overweight the day before the fight and ineligible to become the champion even if he had defeated Valdez. The fight was also in danger of not happening when rain showers covered the venue during the morning and all throughout the evening. There was also another weight issue when Quigg’s camp refused to do a second-day weight check and Valdez’s team advised the champion to not go through with the fight.
Valdez has held the WBO title since 2016 when he defeated Matias Carlos Adrian Rueda and has retained his title four times, with Quigg being Valdez’s toughest opponent to date.
The co-main event, a super featherweight bout between Andy Vences and Erick De Leon for the vacant WBC Americas and WBO International titles, ended in a majority draw. Vences retained the WBO International title but the WBC Americas title remains vacant.
