Complying with the rules and rigorous discipline demanded by professional boxing does not pose a problem for Óscar Valdez, featherweight world champion by the World Boxing Organization (WBO). The challenge comes when the order should continue at home.
“After boxing, discipline at home continues,” Valdez told Efe in an interview in Mexico City.
“I live in my father’s house, who runs my career and is part of my team, but when we get home we change the ‘switch’ and he becomes my father again and for him the world champion is finished and his son returns.” He added.
But for Valdez, discipline is an inherent quality. While many of his colleagues suffer for weight and diet, a common sacrifice in boxing, or find it hard to keep up with their workouts and do not like getting up early, Oscar’s hardest job is to stay away from his family.
“I’m still a family son, I’m very close to my father, my mother and my brothers, even though I’m 26. When I walk away, I still miss them,” he explained.
The pugilist, who reviews a few months in Los Angeles, California, in addition to complying with their training must circumvent the concentrations and camps prior to a match, with two or three months away.
The distancing of his family supplements it with technology and social networks, but he always needs the warmth of home and enjoys when his mother “has breakfast ready or I have activities with my brothers or my friends, but boxing is my passion , It’s my job and it’s what I enjoy doing “.
With an outstanding career as an amateur boxer, Valdez attended two Olympic Games (Beijing 2008 and London 2012) and boasts an undefeated record of 22 wins -19 before the limit – and is world champion.
The native of Nogales, Sonora, northwest Mexico, one day longs to be named “the best boxer pound for pound” in the world, a title that in recent years has been in the fists of American Floyd Mayweather and Philippine Manny Pacquiao.
Another dream is to be one of the greats in Mexican boxing history. “I know it’s very difficult, I know that I’m practically starting and that some boxers at my age were already great champions and I had already fought with high level rivals, but I will work to achieve it,” he says.
Nevertheless, his great challenge is to fulfill this dream, that when the generations to come review the illustrious names of the country’s pugilism as those of Salvador Sánchez, Julio Cesar Chavez, Erik Morales and Juan Manuel Márquez, “the name of Óscar Valdez is in That list “, ends the champion.
