Oscar Valdez made it 24 professional wins in a row with a unanimous-decision victory over Britain’s Scott Quigg.
The fight, at the StubHub Center, Carson, California, was set to be a battle for the WBO featherweight crown but the Bury man came in 2.8lbs overweight on Friday.
Valdez, who has held the belt since 2016, was scored to have won the bout 117-111, 117-111 and 118-110.
The champion suffered a cut in the sixth which bled for the remainder of the contest, and Quigg dealt out some hard hits in the 10th and 11th, but Valdez struck back with heavy blows.
Quigg (34-2-2, 25 KOs) was unable to close out before the bell as his attempt to win the fight faded.
According to Manny Robles, trainer of Valdez, his boxer suffered a fractured jaw in the fifth round and continued to fight the entire way. Valdez went to a local hospital following the fight.
“Oscar got hurt in the fifth round,” said Manny Robles, Valdez’s trainer. “It was pretty bad. If you could see his teeth … The jaw is kind of separated.
“But I never mentioned it between rounds, didn’t want to have him thinking about it. I left the mouthpiece in after all those rounds. I thought he boxed a little bit, used some lateral movement, but in the end he’s just a warrior, and he had to be against Quigg.”
If Robles had the choice, he would have pulled him from the fight - because Quigg had a big weight advantage when they entered the ring. When he arrived at the arena, Quigg weighed in at 142.2-pounds - making the former super bantamweight champion a welterweight.
“We were fighting a welterweight tonight. Oscar hit him with some big shots and it didn’t seem to make any difference. I don’t know why he didn’t make weight and I thought it was unprofessional. If it were up to me, we probably wouldn’t have fought. But with all that, Scott Quigg is a warrior. He’s all over your ass from the beginning," Robles said.
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