By Norm Frauenheim
Featherweight Oscar Valdez moves seamlessly between English and Spanish. He needs no interpreter for what he’s saying and what he’s doing. From amateur to pro, he understands where he’s been and where he intends to go.
Another step in that process takes place on Dec. 12 in a city he knows.
Tucson is a beginning for the two-time Mexican Olympian.
“It’s really where I began to box,’’ Valdez (17-0, 15 KOs) said Thursday before a Top Rank news conference at Tucson Community Center where he faces Filipino Ernie Sanchez on a Unimas-televised card in an arena just a few city blocks from where he went to school, Manzo Elementary “I was 8-years-old. My dad would take me to these gyms. Then, me and my friends would go to gyms around town and I’d tell them that one day I’d be a professional boxer. That’s kind of how all of this got started.’’
After grade school, Valdez moved to Nogales, a Mexican border town, and continued to work on what began in Tucson. Today, a kid’s dream is reality. It has taken Valdez, now 24, to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics and London for the 2012 Games. It has taken him from prospect to potential contender in a division as competitive as any. It has brought him back to the beginning, Tucson, where his mom, Gloria Fierro, still lives.
It looks as if the Tucson bout might be his last before he steps up to world class. His first challenge for a major title could happen in 2016. Valdez has been mentioned as a possibility for Top Rank prodigy Vasyl Lomachenko. For now, however, he’s still the student, which means another lesson plan against Sanchez (15-6-1, 6 KOs), who is from General Santos City, Manny Pacquiao’s hometown.
“Whenever Top Ranks tells me, I’ll be ready,’’ said Valdez, who lost to Lomachenko in the 2009 World Championships in Milan, Italy. “Hopefully, it will be next year.’’
