Oscar Valdez (32-2, 23 KOs) found the fountain of youth on Friday night to defeat #2 Liam Wilson (13-3, 7 KOs) by a seventh-round technical knockout to win the vacant interim WBO super featherweight title on ESPN+ at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
Valdez hurt Wilson in round seven with a left hook and then unloaded with a flurry of unanswered shots, resulting in referee Mark Nelson stepping in to stop the fight. The stoppage occurred at 2:48 of the seventh.
The referee, Nelson, halted the fight somewhat quickly because Wilson was still trying to fight back and looked like he was throwing a punch when it was halted. The ref decided to pull Wilson out after he had taken a lot of heavy punches from Valdez in the final sequence.
If Wilson had held out to Valdez, he could have cleared his head and gotten things back together. But with the way he was fighting, he wouldn’t win.
Wilson gave up his height and brawled with the shorter Valdez at close range from the fifth round and took a lot of punishment. In between rounds, Wilson failed to follow the instructions given to him by his corner, who wanted him to fight at range.
The fight’s ending was similar to how Wilson was knocked out last year by Emanuel Navarrete. In that fight, Wilson got hurt in the ninth and failed to grab Navarrete to tie him up.
Tonight’s fight was arguably a consolation bracket-level contest between two recent victims of Emanuel Navarrete. The 33-year-old former two-division world champion Valdez showed his experience and pedigree, taking advantage of the many mistakes the younger, bigger, and stronger 28-year-old Liam Wilson made to score a stoppage.
The Aussie Wilson fought well in the first two rounds, landing a lot of hard shots. He hurt Valdez with a body shot in round two, causing him to feign that he’d been hit low. The referee wasn’t buying his acting job and allowed the action to continue.
From the third round on, Valdez took control of the contest, landing many nice shots. Wilson was still connecting with some big punches, but not as many. Wilson suffered a bloody nose in the third, and that continued to be a problem fro the remainder of the bout.
After the fight, Valdez expressed interest in fighting the other champions at Super Featherweight for a unification. He’s assuming obviously that Navarrete will capture the WBO lightweight title in his next fight on May 18th and then choose to vacate his 130-lb title. Once Navarrete vacates, the interim WBO super featherweight title that Valdez won tonight will be automatically elevated to the full belt.
