Oscar Valdez, Jessie Magdaleno Wait For Word on Opponents
By Miguel Rivera
World champions Oscar Valdez and Jessie Magdaleno are in the pipeline to defend their titles on March 10 on Californian soil, according to their manager Frank Espinoza.
Although the venue is still unknown, it is expected that Top Rank can set it down in the coming days - with the StubHub in Carson, California being eyed as well as the Forum in Inglewood, or even the Microsoft Theater where they have done functions.
"Everything points to the fact that the first defense of Oscar and also of Jessie will be in the month of March, on the 10th, it is what we have been told and details are missing as to the venue and obviously the opponents but we know that it can be in California where both are happy to fight," said Espinoza to ESPN Deportes.
In the case of Valdez (23-0, 17 KO's), he returns from a good 2017 in which he twice successfully defended the featherweight belt of the World Boxing Organization.
In his first fight he was able to defeat a very tough Miguel Marriaga in a give and take battle in which he rallied down the stretch with very hard punches to win fight in Carson, while in the second fight he got up from the canvas to win by points over a resilient Genesis Servania in Tucson.
For Magdaleno (25-0, 18 KO's) things were different, because he only climbed the ring once to defend the super bantamweight belt for the WBO, and he did it in April against Adeilson dos Santos in Carson, California.
However, he did not put his gloves back on for another fight for the remainder of 2017.
Magdaleno suffered a hand injury that prevented him from fighting against Mexico's Cesar Juarez in the mandatory defense and now must wait for a new opponent or the winner of the fight between Juarez and Isaac Dogboe on January 6 in Accra, Ghana, for the interim-WBO title.
