By Miguel Rivera
Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum has no intention of rushing Puerto Rican lightweight star Felix "El Diamante" Verdejo to a world title fight.
Last Friday in San Juan, Verdejo struggled to win a ten round decision over unknown Nicaraguan Oliver Flores. It wasn't the first time where Verdejo looked less than spectacular. Flores was brought in as a safe opponent, because Verdejo was returning for the first time since a bad motorcycle accident last year. Things certainly weren't safe, with Flores having Verdejo in some trouble in the late stages of the fight.
If Verdejo would have won in style, his next fight would have likely been a word title shot. Verdejo is the mandatory challenger for the WBO world title, which is held by Terry Flanagan of the UK. Flanagan will defend against Petr Petrov in the coming months.
Arum, who was not present at the event that took place at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, received a detailed report of what happened.
"[Verdejo] did not look very good, but it is something that happens with young fighters. We will have to explore the reasons on why he did not look good last Friday," Arum said to Carlos Gonzalez.
"I do not have the slightest idea [on what the next move for him will be]. Everyone is trying to figure out what happened. You have to straighten out the ship. We will explore all aspects of why his performances are not at the same level that they were before. Maybe inactivity or maybe it's other things. We're going to figure it out."
"We want to be very patient. Verdejo is a great prospect and if we reach any obstacles along the way, we will find a way to overcome it. We're not going to rush blindly into a title fight or something else he's not ready and until we're convinced [that he is]."
Arum revealed that he wants to see Verdejo again in the ring before June.
"We want him to fight again before the summer, maybe within the next two months," he said.
Ricky Márquez, the trainer and manager of Verdejo, was also not satisfied with the performance of his pupil and a day before the contest against Flores, he made it clear that he would be willing to add other people who contribute to the development of the fighter.
"Puerto Rico has had about 70 world champions and 99 percent of them have been developed and trained by Puerto Ricans. I do not have to look for anyone from the outside, but maybe within the Puerto Rican coaches I might look for help. I stay constantly in communication with several coaches, we share ideas. But I do not see the need to look outside [of Puerto Rico]," Marquez said.
