The last trip to Las Vegas for Oscar Valdez for a major title fight came one week prior to stablemate and pound-for-pound superstar Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in a fight of his own.

It produced a career-best result for Valdez, who tore through long-reigning WBC junior lightweight titlist Miguel Berchelt last February 20 at MGM Grand Conference Center. Valdez envisions a similarly career-defining result heading into this weekend’s title unification bout with WBO 130-pound claimant Shakur Stevenson (17-0, 9KOs).

That mentality comes with spending all of training camp in the presence of boxing royalty such as Alvarez, the reigning undisputed super middleweight king who challenges WBA light heavyweight titlist Dmitry Bivol (19-0, 11KOs) one week later at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. With their training camps once again overlapping, the expectation is a clean sweep for the dynamic duo.

“Working alongside Canelo is amazing,” Valdez told BoxingScene.com ahead of this Saturday’s dangerous clash with Stevenson on ESPN from MGM Grand Garden Arena. “Even when he’s training for his own fight, he’ll stop the sparring and teach us certain things. He has more experience than the rest of us so it only makes me better. He has fought the best in his prime. There’s a lot that he knows that can definitely benefit me in a fight.

“It definitely helps training alongside one another, as well as training with Eddy Reynoso. We all just feed off each other.”

The fight with Stevenson marks the seventh for Valdez under the tutelage of Reynoso, the two-time and most recent Trainer of the Year best known for his career-long work with Alvarez (57-1-2, 39KOs). The two pulled away with knockout wins the last time they fought one week apart—Alvarez expectedly stopping overmatched Avni Yildirim in a mandatory defense of his WBC super middleweight title defense last February 27, one week after Valdez’s stunningly one-sided tenth-round knockout of Berchelt to become a two-division titlist.

Valdez—a two-time Olympian for Mexico—insists he is fully prepared for the biggest fight of his career to date, heading into his second WBC title defense as a +390 underdog versus Stevenson according to DraftKings sportsbook. The fight comes one week prior to Alvarez entering as a healthy -425 favorite by the same sportsbook, despite fighting for just the second time above super middleweight against a natural and unbeaten light heavyweight.

A win by Valdez on Saturday will bring a second unified titlist to Reynoso’s stable. There’s no better way to prepare for such an opportunity than absorbing knowledge from the sport’s very best who’s accomplished the feat several times over.  

“I want to accomplish everything that [Alvarez] has accomplished,” noted Valdez. “I want to one day be the unified, the undisputed champion and then go up in more divisions. That’s something I’ve always dreamed of since I was a little kid. I have this fighter in front of me like Canelo Alvarez who has already accomplished this.

“Obviously he knows the path, he has way more experience than all of us. There’s a thing or two that we don’t know that we can use in a fight.”

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox