Crawford vs. Valero

Valero by KO.

I still believe, that had the talent to become a very great boxer.

 

F_uck Edwin Valero. He was a POS.

 

Valero proved nothing at world level, except that with a little speed Antonio DeMarco is dealt with fairly easily.

Crawford despite only recently becoming a big name has proven himself more in two years than Valero did in his entire career.

 

He was fast, that's all - not even special, once-in-a-lifetime fast. :conf

 

Crawford would beat him. Valero wasn't that fast, and also had fought no one of note, outside of Mosquera, which was long before he fought De Marco. Let's not forget, De Marco was a young, untested, up and coming guy, who had also beaten nobody, when he fought Valero. The one name guy that Valero fought, dropped him. It is easy to look good against damn near all cans.

 

Valero certainly never carried up fearsome power to 135, if ever it was real at the lower weights and not a product of can - crushing - and certainly nowhere close to enough to dent Crawford's at least very good chin even if he could sneak a few powersshots in flush past Bud's sometimes lazy defense on handspeed.

Valero wouldn't have much of a chance to outpoint Crawford or kayo him. He is likelier to win by fluke DQ than either of those more straightforward methods.

 

I like El Loco, and consider him a solid underrated B-level guy - but despite having been a titlist when he fought and lost to Valero (in a war) he was no elite and probably neither a much better fighter in truth nor a much bigger name than DeMarco. (who, incidentally, has always been overrated in book ever since he upset a shot Kid Diamond and had everybody thinking - including heading into the Valero match - that he was some kind of world-beater.

Mosquera and DeMarco are his best two victories for sure, with the distant third, pathetically enough (for someone with 8 world title bouts across two divisions) being ancient Pitalua. :-(

Brawling on even terms with Mosquera pretty correctly demonstrated Valero's actual level: B, and that's at his peak weight of super feather where he was faster and more powerful. As for moving up and schooling a slightly better fighter than Mosquera in DeMarco just boils down to "styles make fights". The blueprint on DeMarco isn't exactly hard - tough, determined and heavy-handed guy but very flawed (and far less technically skilled than Valero or Mosquera). Linares schooled him in a shutout through several rounds until tanking it late.

 

Edwin Valero will always be placed in the "what if?" category.

Damn shame.

 

I'd pick Crawford, but I wouldn't be surprised if Valero KO'd Crawford, honestly.

Valero certainly wasn't elite and wouldn't have been elite.

 

Nah, it just seems that way because of the die-young mystique .

There was enough of a sampling to rate him accurately. Good but was never going to be great. If he met Pacquiao like some were calling for it would been ridiculously one-sided.

Heck, even if rumored matches with Guzman or even Soto had come to fruition there is a good chance he would've taken a loss and/or been shown up as lacking.

 

And I would have shelled out a **** ton of money to see that fight for as long as it lasted. That would have been an ABSOLUTE ****ING WAR

 

Bud might well get knocked out someday with some of the bad defensive habits cultivated in his early pro days, but it will take someone with speed, athleticism, ring IQ, skill, and big-time power at 135+.

Valero's shots for most of the night didn't even make DeMarco bat an eyelash; his pop (which may have been smoke and mirrors in the first place; the best guy he stopped had been Mosquera and the rest were all filler) had diminished in the move up to lightweight, or at least could no longer be mythically characterized as "bone-crunching". The motif in Valero beating DeMarco - if looked at with objective clarity, as by someone who'd never heard of either guy heading in - was "speed kills", not "wow, this guy's a puncher...".

 

Valero lacked boxing skills but had crazy punching power and liked to put pressure on his opponents. Crawford can switch stances with ease, has a long jab with an impeccable ability to adjust, well lets call him Terence "The Chameleon" Crawford cause he can adapt to just about anything. That came from Breidis Prescott (Power Puncher) Yuriorkis Gamboa (Speed) and found a way to win convincingly. He's like a combination of Marvin Hagler, Mayweather and Pernell Whitaker all in one, the kid's a special boxer.

 

Crawford boxes Valero's ears off. But Valero would probably catch/drop Crawford once or twice.