If Oscar Valdez thought his gloves and heart could deliver him from controversy Friday night, he was mistaken.
He was also victorious.
The WBC junior lightweight champ survived a challenge from Robson Conceicao and came from behind to win a unanimous decision, one that sets up Valdez for a much bigger fight against either Shakur Stevenson or Jamel Herring, who fight next month.
The scores were 117-110, 115-112 and 115-112, a bit more lopsided than it looked, particularly to Conceicao. He kept Valdez at a distance through the first half of the fight, but his work rate slowed in the second half, and he was given a dubious one-point penalty, without a warning, for tapping Valdez on the back of the head in the ninth round. Two rounds later, Valdez belted Conceicao in the same place with no penalty.
“Look at his face, look at my face,” Conceicao said. “Oscar is all messed up. I will fight him anywhere, even at his farm with all his animals nearby, and I will beat him again.”
The challenger landed 141 punches and absorbed only 83, according to CompuBox. After the final bell rang, Conceicao rushed Valdez’s corner and yelled contemptuously.
“I don’t like getting disrespected like that,” Valdez said. “I’ve been through enough this week. I’ve been through a hard week.”
Even before he walked into the 90-degree outdoor ring in Tucson, Arizona, the undefeated Valdez (30-0) was no longer unblemished.
He tested positive for phentermine, an appetite suppressant that is banned in and out of competition by VADA, the drug policing agency that he normally uses and was contracted to test the boxers in this fight.
Phentermine also is a stimulant to the nervous system, which theoretically provides Valdez energy and work capacity he wouldn’t have had otherwise.
But the WBC elected to use the rules employed by WADA, the agency which only bans phentermine during “competition,” which technically begins just before midnight on the day before the fight.
The event was given the green light by the athletic commission for the Pascal Yaqui tribe, which owns Casino Del Sol, the host of the card.
Bob Arum, the Top Rank boss who promotes Valdez, said Valdez possibly got traces of phentermine from drinking herbal tea, a notion that didn’t seem so far-fetched to some toxicologists.
“Of all people, the UFC even said Valdez would be able to fight on one of their cards,” Arum said. “It’s ridiculous to say he shouldn’t be allowed to fight.”
“The herbal tea is the only new thing I’ve taken,” Valdez said. “You need a prescription to take phentermine, and I never had a prescription. I know every fighter is responsible for what he consumes, but I’ve always been 100 percent clean.”
It was the first shadow on the career of Valdez, the two-time Mexican Olympian who probably gave boxing its best performance of the year when he took out Miguel Berchelt in the 10th round on Feb. 21. He never has tested positive before.
But it added to boxing’s recurring nightmare year. Just in the past week, Brandon Figueroa had to postpone his 122-pound championship showdown with Stephen Fulton because of COVID-19, and the third meeting between super flyweight giants Roman Gonzalez and Juan Estrada will be moved back because the same illness visited Gonzalez.
Oscar De La Hoya’s comeback fight against Vitor Belfort also got sidelined when the Golden Boy was hospitalized with COVID-19, and the replacement for De La Hoya was the 58-year-old Evander Holyfield. Jim Lampley, boxing’s leading play-by-play man who has returned to broadcast fights for Triller, walked away from this farce.
Tim Bradley, the former champ and current ESPN analyst, said last week that he hoped Valdez lost to Conceicao by knockout. Valdez had lost to Conceicao by a one-point decision in the Pan-American Games gold medal fight in 2009. The Brazilian, also undefeated and the 2016 Olympic gold medalist, brought a 4-inch reach advantage into Friday’s fight.
The lead-in fight added a layer of unpredictability. Gabriel Flores Jr. of Stockton and his 20-0 record were beaten so frightfully by Jose Alberto Lopez (23-2) that Flores’ father and trainer stood on the ring apron and asked to have it stopped with 10 seconds left in the 10th and final round, although referee Robert Velez didn’t see him. Lopez won by scores of 100-90, 100-90 and 98-92.
“He should be fighting for a world title,” Flores said of Lopez. “He’s a 126-pounder and he came up to 130. He embarrassed me.”
A sport that has moved way past embarrassment now braces for whatever’s next.
