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Cult figure with brain injury: Can Edwin Valero ever cash in at bank of Manny Pacquiao?
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Top Rank Photo (Chris Farina)
Edwin Valero wants to fight Manny Pacquaio for the same reason that notorious Willie Sutton used to target banks.
In what may be the most foolish question ever asked of a career criminal, someone asked Sutton why he always robbed banks.
“Because,” Sutton said, “that’s where the money is.”
If you’re a lightweight/junior welterweight/welterweight professional boxer, the thought of making a serious pile of money by fighting the Pinoy idol will cross your mind.
But now the 24-0, all by KO, Venezuelan’s own promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank, tells Boxingconfidential.com that a serious amount of prep work has to be done before Valero can be thrust into a Pacman super fight.
“Edwin is great,” Arum told me. “But he’s really a cult figure in boxing. He’s like an underground star. He’s not widely known to the general public in the way that, for example, a Ricky Hatton is. Only the real boxing insiders know much about Valero.”
Of course, starmaker Arum has plans to familiarize the wider world with the punching power and engaging personality of the 27-year-old banger. But, for now, Arum doesn’t seem to mind that rival promoter Golden Boy finds itself with Valero headlining a four fight “Lightweight Lightning” PPV TV show beamed out of Austin, Tx., on Saturday, April 4.
That’s when Valero—who once told me on a bus ride around Cancun, Mexico, that his right hand (his jabbing paw from the southpaw stance) and his left hand (the power shots) taken together are “worth $25 million”—faces long in the tooth (age 39) Antonio Pitalua, a Colombian fighting out of Mexico, for the WBC lightweight strap.
Golden Boy wound up with the Valero-Pitalua scrap through a purse bid circumstance but the funny thing is Valero’s star bout status had some wondering how firm a commitment Arum had with the knockout artist.
“Oh, no problem,” Arum said. “We’ve got a firm contract, Valero is one of our guys.”
Arum is right about Valero’s cult status. A check of his pro ring record shows only three bouts in America, the last a TKO 1 over someone named Tomas Zambrano (a woeful 0-4) at a Marriott Hotel in Irvine, Ca., on Dec. 18, 2003.
Valero’s record shows a much used passport with bouts in Japan, France, Argentina and Panama.
The ironic thing is that Oscar De La Hoya’s company was working with Valero back in 2004 when a routine examination to get licensed to fight in New York showed evidence of an old brain injury. If memory serves, the Goldens were going to co-promote Valero along with his then benefactor, Akihiko Honda of Teiken Promotions (Japan).
The reason Valero is fighting in Texas is because, at this point, it is the only U.S. jurisdiction in which he has been licensed.
Arum talks from time to time about pushing forward to get Valero medically cleared to fight in Nevada but the promoter is carefully low-keying all that.
What with the sensitive medical issue and his low drawing power at this point, I can’t see Valero getting on Megamanny’s dance card in 2009. He may be a longshot to get a Pacman bout even in 2010.
There’s Hatton coming up May 2 and, if present plans push forward, a possible Pacquiao-Mayweather blockbuster in late fall, probably in November.
Valero, only 27, has time for his buildup to be sure. And the Top Rank machine will work overtime to polish his star and move him into a zone of much wider familiarity.
But what of the political football that Nevada must deal with? Clearing a fighter with a documented past brain injury, no matter what any doctor says, is a touchy subject.
No Valero for Manny in 2009. No Valero for Manny probably in 2010.
Valero better hope like hell Pacquiao is still fighting in 2011 or else he will have to locate another boxing bank.
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