{"id":430066,"date":"2026-01-24T10:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T10:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/430066\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T10:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T10:50:10","slug":"oscar-valdez-lost-to-shakur-stevenson-and-now-delivers-verdict-on-teofimo-lopez-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/430066\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Valdez lost to Shakur Stevenson and now delivers verdict on Teofimo Lopez fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former two-division world champion Oscar Valdez<\/a>, who lost to Shakur Stevenson<\/a> in 2022, has given a fair assessment of the Newark man\u2019s upcoming showdown with Teofimo Lopez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pair will square off for Lopez\u2019s WBO super-lightweight title<\/a> at Madison Square Garden, New York, on January 31, with Stevenson looking to become a four-weight world champion.<\/p>\n

Many expect this to be a battle between the slippery southpaw skills of Stevenson and the sheer athleticism and unpredictability of Lopez, who comes off a comprehensive points victory over Arnold Barboza Jr<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most notably, \u2018The Takeover\u2019 was able to dethrone Vasyl Lomachenko and Josh Taylor in 2020 and 2023, respectively, but has repeatedly fallen into the trap of producing sub-par performances against lesser-known fighters.<\/p>\n

Still, the 28-year-old has largely established himself as a top 10 pound-for-pound fighter, with just the one defeat coming against George Kambosos Jr in 2021.<\/p>\n

Stevenson, on the other hand, has remained far more consistent at world level, most recently defending his WBC lightweight title against William Zepeda in July.<\/p>\n

Prior to that, the technician\u2019s most praise-worthy win arrived against Valdez, the then-WBO super-featherweight champion, who he outboxed through large spells of their 12-round contest.<\/p>\n

But despite having previously found himself on the receiving end of a Stevenson boxing lesson, Valdez nonetheless views his former opponent\u2019s fight with Lopez as a 50\/50 matchup.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Fight Hub TV<\/a>, the Mexican ultimately decided to refrain from picking a winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a chess game inside that ring, because Teofimo Lopez is a tremendous athlete.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen him with both eyes \u2013 the way he trains; his ability to do different things inside the ring is abnormal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you\u2019ve got Shakur Stevenson, the best fighter, defensive-wise, that\u2019s out there. I honestly look at it as a 50\/50 [fight].\u201d<\/p>\n

Valdez also admitted to sharing a close friendship with Lopez but, even when removing any bias from the equation, he still cannot seem to select a clear winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former two-division world champion Oscar Valdez, who lost to Shakur Stevenson in 2022, has given a fair assessment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-430066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}