Oscar Valdez defeats Evgeny Gradovich by TKO
Oscar Valdez celebrates after defeating Evgeny Gradovich in the fourth round of their featherweight title bout Saturday in Las Vegas.
Reporting from Las Vegas — Oscar Valdez’s talent in hotel ballroom fights projected to something greater, and when the Southland-trained former Olympian from Mexico stepped on that stage Saturday night he fulfilled the potential.
Valdez (19-0, 17 knockouts) scored a fourth-round technical knockout of former featherweight title challenger Evgeny Gradovich at MGM Grand, an exhibition of precision and power by Valdez that likely will take him to a main event here in the not-so-distant future.
After striking the Oxnard-trained Russian Gradovich (21-2-1) with punches that left him cut at the right eyebrow after three rounds, Valdez closed his kill by unleashing a hard left hook right on Gradovich’s nose, knocking him down and prompting referee Russell Mora to stop the fight 2 minutes 14 seconds into the round.
It was just the second time Gradovich had been dropped in his career, and he was out-punched 109-28.
“Felt great,” Valdez said. “I know I’m going to get tough fights. I know I have to evolve. I’ve evolved.”
Valdez is strongly positioned to soon fight for a featherweight world title amid talks that could move current World Boxing Organization champion Vasyl Lomachenko to 130 pounds.
Robert Garcia, Gradovich’s trainer, said afterward, “It was a great performance from Oscar Valdez. He will be a future world champion. We knew it was a tough fight.”
Valdez acknowledged afterward he’s a step shy of Lomachenko, but added he’s indeed ready now to fight for a belt.
His countryman, Gilberto Ramirez, achieved that honor, and became the first Mexican to win a super-middleweight world title by defeating veteran Arthur Abraham for the World Boxing Organization belt.
Judges Adalaide Byrd, Glenn Trowbridge and Glenn Feldman each scored it a 120-108 sweep for the 24-year-old Ramirez (34-0), a fighter from Mazatlan, Mexico, who trains in Carson.
Only one Mexican, Julio Gonzalez, has won a world title in a heavier division, light-heavyweight.
“I came here to make history and I did it,” Ramirez said.
In the second round, Ramirez capitalized on an unsteady step by the 36-year-old Abraham, rocking him with a sudden punch to the face that left the champion wobbled and so out of sorts seconds later at the bell that he began walking to the wrong corner.
Abraham’s infrequent punches cost him, as Ramirez smartly avoided an intense inside battle, using his advantage in height and reach.
“He’s very heavy handed, danger at all times,” Ramirez said of Abraham (44-5), who was making his sixth title defense.
“I too him to Mexican boxing school. He couldn’t take any movement. I knew halfway through the fight I was going to win it.”
The action preceded the night’s main event, a trilogy capping welterweight fight between record eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao and Coachella Valley’s Timothy Bradley that began after press time. See latimes.com/sports for full coverage.
Jose Ramirez, a 2012 U.S. Olympian from Avenal, Calif., improved to 17-0 with a unanimous-decision victory over Manny Perez of Denver.
The judges scored the bout 97-93 (Robert Hoyle), 98-92 (Eric Cheek), 99-91 (Don Trelia).
The effects of Ramirez’s superior talent surfaced in the first half of the fight as he battered the game Perez with combinations to the body and head in the fourth round.
Ramirez followed another combination in the fifth by whipping a hard punch to the face, leaving Perez swollen at the eyes by the fight’s end.
By the ninth round, Ramirez’s trainer, Freddie Roach, from Hollywood’s Wild Card Boxing Club, had to exit to wrap Pacquiao’s hands backstage.
Ramirez kept the punishment coming in the 10th, pounding Perez’s body.
“Biggest win of my career,” Ramirez said after beating the veteran.
“Perez is very short. He fights low. So I had to use my jab and right hand and distance to get to him.”
Assistant trainer Marvin Somodio was impressed.
“This was a great experience for [Ramirez],” Somodio said.
Follow Lance Pugmire on Twitter: @latimespugmire
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