By Miguel Rivera
Last Saturday, WBO featherweight world champion Oscar Valdez made his return to the ring.
Valdez came back for the first time after suffering a badly broken jaw in a decision win over Scott Quigg in March of 2018.
Valdez (25-0, 20 KOs) won the fight by knockout in seven rounds over Italy's Carmine Tommasone. It was the first fight with new trainer Eddy Reynoso in the corner. Reynoso felt the contest went better than expected.
After the fight, a specialist recommended two weeks of rest due to Valdez feeling some pain in his hand, but nothing of a serious nature.
Frank Espinoza, manager of the world champion, revealed the possibility of seeing him in May before looking for a unification fight, either with Josh Warrington or Leo Santa Cruz.
"Óscar is fine, he was given two weeks of rest because he had a swollen hand, but everything is calm, he will only rest a couple of weeks," Espinoza said to ESPN Deportes.
"What we discussed with him is that we want a lot of activity in 2019, possibly in May he will return, we will see what Top Rank has on the agenda. We want him to be active. We expect him to make one more defense in May before looking for the unification fight with Josh Warrington or Leo Santa Cruz. They both have fights, so let's see what happens, but it's what Óscar wants, the big fights.
"We are very happy with Eddy, this was their first fight together and he offered us a lot of things. Valdez had patience, using better distance, more explosive, good rhythm, he was punching well and that uppercut that he used to finish the fight was something I had not seen before."
For now, Warrington will have to defend the featherweight crown of the International Boxing Federation against Kid Galahad, while Leo Santa Cruz will make a defense of the WBA world title on February 16 against Rafael Rivera.
