By Ben Jacobs
With the amount of attention that Felix Verdejo attracted following his bout last weekend one could be forgiven for forgetting that another young Puerto Rican actually became a world champion on Saturday night.
Supporting Deontay Wilder's WBC heavyweight title defense against Eric Molina was José Pedraza's attempt to win the vacant IBF world title at super featherweight versus Andrey Klimov. Pedraza ended up dominating the fight from start to finish with a display of composure, speed and discipline against his outclassed Russian rival. 'Sniper' spoke to BoxingScene via telephone upon returning to his homeland and confessed he wasn't as calm beneath the surface as he appeared on the exterior.
"I was nervous, I was anxious," he admitted.
"But we know how to control the nerves and anxiety and you could tell that during the fight.
"I'm very happy, I have an immense amount of pride for what we have all done, myself and my team. I'm here in Puerto Rico enjoying myself and I'll spend some time with my wife and family."
José fought a respectable four times in 2014 but had to wait since November for his world title opportunity with the date and location of the bout up in the air for a period. Nevertheless, the Cidra native was not distracted from reaching his goal.
"It was a bit difficult as we had been training since December. It was a lot of waiting and I got a bit anxious, but we just carried on training hard as we knew sooner or later this fight was going to happen. And finally we won, convincingly. It was my intention to dominate the fight from the first round."
Puerto Rico now has two world champions in the super featherweight division with Román 'Rocky' Martínez holding the WBO version of the championship. Could a unification occur between the two or possibly a fight down the line against the talented Verdejo?
"Verdejo has a great promotional machine and he is talked about a lot. But he deserves it, he's an excellent boxer. Right now they are talking about him a lot over here. I have no intention of fighting him, we have a good friendship. There's even less chance now of me fighting him. New world champions are emerging from Puerto Rico, there are three of us now. I know that Verdejo will soon be a world champion as well.
"With Martínez it's the same thing. I won't fight him for the same reason. 'Rocky' and I are gym mates. That fight will never happen."
Pedraza clearly has the look and build of a man capable of moving up in weight and agreed that lightweight is an option in the not too distant future.
"We hope maybe in 2016 to move up in weight, depending on how my body develops but for the rest of this year we'll stay at 130lbs. Then we'll talk about what we will do."