By Ryan Burton
BoxingScene.com has been advised that former super featherweight champion Jose "Sniper" Pedraza (22-1) has signed a promotional agreement with Top Rank Inc.
He had originally signed with Lou DiBella, Gary Shaw and Javier Bustillo who together signed several Puerto Rican fighters under the promotional company Team Puerto Rico in 2011.
Pedraza eventually added adviser Al Haymon to his team and most recently fought under the Premier Boxing Champions banner.
The 27-year-old is now managed by Victory Sports & Entertaiment which is headed by prominent boxing attorney Rick Torres and well known boxing figure Mike Leanardi, along with his father Luis Espada who also trains him. Torres said that Top Rank's track record with Puerto Rican fighters like Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Lopez was one of the key factors in making their decision.
"We have parted on very good terms with (Lou) DiBella and his other promoters. Jose wants to be treated as more of an attraction. Top Rank obviously has a proven track record of developing Puerto Rican fighters into stars and stars into attractions so Jose felt there is much more of a comfort level there," said Torres.
In 2015 Pedraza captured the vacant IBF super featherweight title when he dominated Andrey Klimov over 12 rounds to win a unanimous decision. His career was then plagued by inactivity as he only fought once in 2016 and once in 2017 when he suffered his only career loss when he was stopped by Gervonta Davis in 7 rounds.
Pedraza also struggled to get down to the 130 pound super featherweight limit and will now campaign as a lightweight. Torres is confident that his fighter will bounce back to his previous form with more activity and fighting at a much more comfortable weight.
"Making 130 was becoming a struggle for him over the past couple of fights and he even thought at one point that he would be moving to 135 prior to the Davis fight and that target kept on being moved around a bit which I think caused some issues with his training because he thought he was moving up and then turned around and he was fighting at 130. I think fighting at 135 is what he is looking forward to and he won't have to kill himself to make the weight. I think he will definitely be stronger and more of a force at that weight class," Torres told BoxingScene.com.
"I think he was definitely drained at the weight but also as I mentioned he had a lot of inactivity. He fought like twice in a two year period and the lack of activity, especially for a fighter like Jose who is a slick guy who really depends on timing and rhythm - guys like that really need activity in order to stay sharp and he hadn't been active. There had been indications previously that there would be fights available to him at 135 so he was already of the mindset that he was going to 135 and then it turned around and the fight became a fight at 130. Jose isn't an excuse maker but he was already having difficulty making 130 and the thought process was that he would not have to do that anymore and then all of a sudden he had to so that obviously impacted his performance we feel."
As for when Pedraza will make his Top Rank debut, Torres hopes it will be in just a matter of weeks. He said that their isn't a date set in stone yet but that they hope to have something finalized very shortly.
"We are trying to get that sorted out this week but hopefully it will be sooner rather later. Hopefully some time in March. We are hoping to get him in the ring fairly soon. We are in the process of talking about that now and hopefully we have something to announce soon," Torres stated.
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