Félix "El Diamante" Verdejo - or should we say, "Cubic Zirconia"?

Wasn't he supposed to be setting the world on fire by now? He debuted more than five years ago now. By the night of his next scheduled ring appearance, on an ESPN undercard in March (a 10-rounder with no hardware on the line), he will have been a pro 5½ years heading into his 24th bout - with no major steps up in class and nothing to show for this lengthy campaign except a WBO Latino title he defended half a dozen times.

On paper, you might be impressed by his shutout victories over previously unbeaten foes like 16-0 (8) Ivan "Bam-Bam" Najera or 23-0 (14) William "Baby Face" Silva - but they both had brought in empty, padded records, with the former going on to be stopped twice in a row by subsequent opponents while the latter is, well, a Brazilian (enough said). In reality, Verdejo's competition has plateaued off with the likes of Marco Antonio "El Kua-Kua" López and Oscar "La Máquina" Bravo - guys that can perhaps make a little noise on the Mexican or Chilean domestic scene, respectively, but not much further.

This is a kid that was hyped up, if you newbies can believe it, as much as Lomachenko when he first broke into the pro ranks. He was supposed to be, if not as good as Lomachenko (who defeated him in the London Olympic quarterfinals at 60kg, rather easily) at least "in the same neighborhood". His amateur mark of 106-17 is decent, especially when considering how many international tourneys he participated in, but it doesn't glitter quite as brightly as Lomachenko's 396-1. I'm not sure they ever belonged in the same breath as being even "roughly" peers. And yet, for some reason, a large contingent of fans (mostly Puerto Ricans letting their optimism get carried away) declared him a future p4p star and multiple-division world champion in the making. He was supposed to be the heir apparent to Miguel Cotto and before him a lineage of boricua greats, from Carlos Ortiz to Bazooka Gómez to Hector Camacho to Félix Trinidad.

Well. Ahem. Tick-tock. We're now just shy of six years past London, and sure enough Lomachenko has begun to meet or exceed the promise that swirled about him, while Verdejo has fulfilled none of his. You can't even blame a lack of competent & deep-pocketed backing, either - Top Rank snatched him up immediately after the Games in 2012, before he even made his pro debut! His performances have been spotty & inconsistent against journeymen - sometimes looking terrific and sometimes very mundane, implying that he is the sort of hollow prospect that can be made to look beastly if very carefully maneuvered through mismatches that are stylistically favorable to him. Clearly, this is something Bob Arum has lost patience with, moving on to other priorities in the last few years while Verdejo has stagnated.

Honestly, there's a chance Antonio "Cañitas" Lozada Jr., a big natural lightweight in his prime with a big punch, could expose Verdejo (coming off a thirteen-month layoff!) and score an upset that would mean not that Lozada is some world-class diamond in the rough, but just that Verdejo was in fact overrated the whole time. Even if he gets by Lozada - so what? He no longer holds that WBO Latino strap (it's been contested by other parties twice since he last defended it), and having not fought in over a year that means he is unrated by any major org. Lozada Jr. won't suddenly catapult him into any meaningful bouts, and that fight is two months away. His twenty-fifth birthday looms on the other side of the hill, two months after the Lozada match. In his late teens he was said to be the prospect to keep a vigil for, and that by the age he is now he would have conquered the universe.

Who's ready to eat some crow on this one?

 

Glad to see people coming around.

I was saying that in 2012 (not that he flat out sucks, but that he wasn't the pupal mega-star everyone thought was cocooning before their eyes) and everybody thought I was crazy for not "seeing it".

 

I guess he might still bag a title (although 135 isn't exactly anemic talent nowadays - with Linares, Campbell, Flanagan, Easter, Davis, Mendy, Farmer, and Commey in the mix) but I think his "next best thing after Lomachenko" ship has sailed...and probably never would've left the port of fans' overactive imaginations for the waters of reality anyway.

 

I remember him and read about that, and was pretty bummed out about it, yeah.

 

There isn't a name there I'd favor him against, tbh, and even the winner of Ray Beltrán vs. Paulus Moses, who in truth will be a pretty weak titlist in p4p terms (and when stacked up against the aforementioned names, any of whom could snatch the belt from the winner in a pinch) would be a tough night & not a foregone conclusion for him.

 

Hell, as of now his, er, well-groomed countryman Orlando Cruz would go down as having the better career (with ten wins in various minor title belt fights, as opposed to Verdejo's seven - and has defeated a slightly higher caliber, while all six of his losses have come to guys that stand head and shoulders over anyone Verdejo has faced)

 

So infuriating looking back... I stood alone in my skepticism. Nobody else questioned that he would at least be a top star, if not a p4p king.