Pacquiao-Valero: They Should Have Made this Fight Ages Ago

After a sensational knockout victory over Antonio De Marco, WBC lightweight champion Edwin Valero is pretty much within his rights to seek more lucrative fights against stellar names in boxing. But talking a fight with Pacquiao, that is stretching the envelope a bit.

It is no secret that Valero wanted to fight Pacquiao when the former was still a blip in the boxing’s radar screen. Pacquiao was then the toast of the featherweight and super featherweight divisions when Valero called him out. It would have been a good matchup then. Both fighters are competitive and aggressive. Surely a match billing Pacquiao and Valero would not go the distance.

But the undefeated Venezuelan knockout artist was a relative unknown back then, largely because of a head injury he sustained in a motorcycle accident few years back. With almost all states banning a boxer with a history of head injuries from fighting, Valero fought elsewhere, with his main base in Japan. His exposure to the American audience is somewhat little.

It could have been a great fight. It could have been.

With Pacquiao’s meteoric rise in the weight divisions and his more than superb improvement under the tutelage of Roach, a bout with Valero today would prove to be quite a mismatch.

While Valero holds an undefeated record of 27 wins, all of them by knockouts, his style is fundamentally flawed. His punches are so wide that it leaves him open for counter shots and makes him very predictable. And he has been fighting like that his entire career. He goes forward with wild, wide looping punches that are pretty much visible.

Against a smart boxer/puncher like Pacquiao, Valero’s chance of winning is next to nil. It is quite a similar case to Pacquiao-Hatton.

Bob Arum, Top Rank’s head honcho, is saying that Valero needs to prove himself against good light welterweights before he takes on the Pacman. That may be a good move for Valero, but with Pacquiao’s retirement looming in the horizon, perhaps a Pacquiao-Valero match up will not likely happen. Pacquiao already said it himself; his eyeing two more fights and call it quits.

It is safe to assume that Valero would not win against Pacquiao, but with his aggression and his knack for knocking out everybody he faces inside the squared circle, there is no doubt that fans would get a very charged, explosive battle between the native of Venezuela and the fighting pride of the Philippines.


It would have been a treat.