What an exellent fighter Valdez was - footage of his fight with Briscoe

Sorry, but I was never as impressed with Valdez as a lot of other people are. To me, outside of the shocking KO, he did not look good in this fight. His jabs were sloppy and he allowed Briscoe to get in on him almost at will and hit him in the body. I don't agree that his defense looked good in this fight, and he also was looking a bit tired and ragged in the 7th round when he unleashed what was basically a desperation flurry that KO'd Briscoe, who had hurt Valdez moments earlier and was rushing in wide open and over-eager to press that advantage.

Frankly, I'm not really sure what to make of Valdez. In a nutshell, he was the second best fighter of a not-so-great division (outside of Monzon of course). I question how well he rates compared to great middleweights of other eras. To me, his most impressive performances actually came in his two fights with Monzon - but you can only give someone so much credit for a losing effort.

 

On a side note, I always liked at 3:17 of the bottom video:

"Hey Doug, quit fooling around with that key!"

 

I disagree. By coincidence I watched this fight yesterday and thought Valdez' head movement was excellent. He was frustrating Bennie from around Rd 3 causing him to miss a lot - look at his work off the ropes. Sure Briscoe attacked the body well but it looked to me like it just didn't bother Valdez too much. Both guys traded heavily on the inside in this one.

Yes Valdez was stunned early in rd 7 but it just served to wake him up a bit more and unload that combination that ended it.

 

Thanks for posting this video! If Valdez wasn't great here, nobody was ever great. It's just a shame that he inhabited the same era as the great Carlos Monzon. Valdez would have swabbed the deck of the middleweight division if it wasn't for Monzon. This fight with Briscoe was Valdez at his best. He moved like a cat...outboxing and finessing Bennie until that right hand bomb was landed.

 

Valdez wasn't swabbing the deck with the other middles he DID fight, with Monzon around, though i do tend to think he would have emerged as the best, albeit with a loss or two somewhere along the line.

He looks great in this fight.Shows great poise in the face of BRiscoe's pressure.One of the great right hand knockouts.

 

Didn't Valdez contract a pretty serious STD that sidelined him for a while and really harmed his career?

Same exact thing happened to Ray Mercer and Akiwande.

 

Valdez looks excellent in this and the fact he stopped Bennie is a testament to his power, interesting to see Griffith come in and congratulate Rodrigo.

 

Once again, I disagree on just about everything.

 

He caught hepatitis, but not through sex. He caught it during his fight with New York contender Bobby Cassidy in their fight in Madison Square Garden. That was one of Valdez's biggest wins on the road to becoming a top contender. Cassidy was a popular Garden attraction, a southpaw with a big left cross; but he was also a notorious bleeder. Unknown to Cassidy, he entered the ring with hepatitis (reportedly contracted it during sparring). The fight turned into a bloodbath, with Cassidey bleeding from cuts around both his eyes and Valdez covered in his blood. The fight was stopped on those cuts somewhere around the 7th-8th round. After that, both of them became sick with hepatitis and had to lay off about six months or so.

Incidentally, Cassidy still lives on Long Island around where I live. I run into him from time to time.

 

Let's look at it this way: the weaknesses you saw in Valdez were relative weaknesses. It would have taken an extraordinary fighter to exploit those deficits in Valdez. My guess is that very few middleweights of the past few decades would have had ability to overcome the Valdez of 1974.Personally, I thought Valdez looked great in the film clip. I didn't sense that he was feeling desperate, although he does look scrappy at times.

 

The knockout punch was incredible, especially since Briscoe was never stopped or knocked down in his entire career aside from the Valdez fight.

 

Is Cassidy doing well? Hope so.

Do you feel the hepatitis hindered Valdez's career in any considerable way?

 

He's had his share of ups and downs since he retired (and before that, to be honest). The best thing he did was swear off drinking, and he hasn't touched a drink in quite some time now. He's worked as a trainer (he trained someone notable, I think that middleweight Lonnie Bradley, a while back) and also as a corrections officer.

I don't know. It prevented him from capitalizing on the momentum of the Cassidy fight, but it seems he got back on track not too long after coming back.

The biggest thing that hindered his career was Monzon - first by making him chase him for years to get a fight, then by pummeling him twice when he finally got him, which probably left him jaded by the time he finally won the unified title.