Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy PromotionsMexico’s Neider Valdez hasn’t won four of his past six bouts, and one of his victories came against an 0-1 opponent.
Title-fight worthy? Hardly.
Yet, in the desperate situation of needing unified minimumweight champion Oscar Collazo’s Saturday night title defense on DAZN at Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California, to mean something, a title fight it is.
Valdez 15-3-3 (12 KOs) arrived in California Wednesday and was quickly added to promotional material marketing his fight versus Puerto Rico’s Collazo 14-0 (11 KOs) as a WBA/WBO title bout despite the challenger residing outside the top 15 contenders of both bodies.
It’s pushing it to make a case that Valdez, 25, belongs in the bout given his recent slide, that includes three losses within a 14-month span into last year.
A March 24 TKO loss to Erik Badillo was followed by a second-round knockout loss to Victor Sebastian Rojas Gonzalez in May 2025.
A first-round TKO victory in March came against the 0-1 Jose Leonard Gomez, and Valdez then took a draw less than three weeks ago versus Gerardo Rodriguez Alvarado in Mexico.
One official connected to the bout said that while Valdez’s credentials for a title shot are flimsy, the dire situation of failing to bring planned top-15 contender Joey Canoy from the Philippines, and then discovering a replacement from Mexico was unavailable, makes the title defense palatable.
DAZN and the ticket office promoted a Collazo title defense, and while Valdez is a lacking challenger, there’s only two days before the title fight.
