The pound for pound king’s next opponent will be decided Saturday night in the ring. Ray Beltran will make the first defense of his WBO belt against Jose Pedraza and the winner will earn a career high payday to dance with Loma come December. The stakes are high for the two men in this one.
It took Ray Beltran (35-7-1, 21 KOs) a while to get here. He turned professional in 1999 at age 17 with no real promotional backing or expectations. At the time, Ray was just another kid on the regional fight circuit. His early results did little to dispel that notion either. He lost a four round split decision in his third fight and was stopped in his seventh.
Beltran’s first big break in boxing came in 2004, but it wasn’t in a prize fight. Instead, it was in training. That was the year he became Manny Pacquiao’s primary sparring partner. While it took years to come to fruition, that year laid the foundation for his career as we know it today. Beltran would spend a decade in that role. His personal in ring career still didn’t really gain any notoriety at all until seven years into the arrangement, however, when the Mexican born fighter was used as an opponent for rising prospect Sharif Bogere on ShoBox in 2011. Ray seemed to win that fight, but the judges didn’t agree.
While Beltran couldn’t capitalize on the momentum of the positive televised performance, losing again only two fights later, the combination of the two fights turned out to be a blessing. Beltran was deemed good enough, but not too threatening to meet once beaten Top Rank prospect Henry “Hank” Lundy on Friday Night Fights in 2012. Ray Beltran rose to the occasion that night, earning a tough fought majority decision win in a razor close fight. Suddenly, thirteen years into his professional career, Ray Beltran was a player.
Three fights and one year later, now under the Top Rank banner that had been promoting his legendary employer Manny Pacquiao for years at this point, Ray Beltran got his first chance at a world title. He had to travel to the UK to meet Scottish titleholder Ricky Burns, but that didn’t stop him from putting on a career best performance. Ray Beltran battered Burns that night, breaking his jaw in the process. Unfortunately, much like in the Bogere fight, Beltran was once again robbed of a major win by inept judging.
Since then the Top Rank lightweight has had two more title shots. First was a hopeless task against Terence Crawford, arguably the best fighter in the sport. That ended about how you’d expect, though Bud couldn’t finish him. Next was a much more winnable opportunity, however, against lightly regarded Japanese fighter Takahiro Ao. Indeed, it only took two rounds to flatten his opponent, but the title still did not come. This time Ray Beltran had no one else to blame either. First, he missed weight. This not only made him ineligible to win the title, but he later failed a drug test for the fight as well.
Still, despite being a thrice failed title hopeful, Top Rank really began pushing Beltran hard at the end of 2016. His last three fights were featured on HBO and then ESPN when the promotional giant ended their relationship with the premium cable network. The two HBO fights against Jonathan Maicelo and Mason Menard were nice stoppage wins. Beltran did struggle on ESPN against tricky Bryan Vasquez, but he still earned the win in August of last year.
All this set up Beltran’s crowning moment at 36 years old when he won a clear decision over longtime Namibian fringe contender Paulus Moses to claim the vacant WBO lightweight crown. At least in Ray’s case, the fourth time was the charm. I saw it as a narrow fight in which the Mexican born soon to be titleholder won his belt by having his early body investment pay off late. Paulus Moses isn’t exactly a world level fighter and getting a close win over him probably means the victor isn’t necessarily either, but a belt is a belt. Ray Beltran now has his finally after all these years.
Jose Pedraza’s (24-1, 12 KOs) story is simpler. He won a fight in the 2008 Olympics for Puerto Rico before rising as a pro under Lou DiBella’s banners. There was nothing particularly eventful about his early career as he bounced back and forth between the mainland and his beautiful island. He did stop Tevin Farmer in his eleventh pro fight, but the junior lightweight titleholder hadn’t begun to climb himself out of club fighter status yet so that didn’t mean a lot at the time. After comfortably outpointing fringe contender Michael Farenas in an eliminator, Pedraza pitched a near shutout to take a vacant 130 lb title over Andrey Klimov in 2015. Unfortunately, Jose followed his two biggest career performances by seeming to lose to Edner Cherry on Showtime in his first defense. The judges gave him a curious decision, however, and he was fortunate to be able to redeem himself by largely dominating British contender Stephen Smith in his second defense.
22 year old rising super sensation Gervonta “Tank” Davis just brought too much talent and too much power to the ring next time for Pedraza though. The young buzzsaw sliced through him in seven very one sided rounds in the first few weeks of 2017. From there, Pedraza vanished. He would re-surface a little over a year later a free agent and sign with Top Rank. Under Arum and company’s banners, he has fought two lower level fights on ESPN+ prelms. The last of which against Antonio Moran was a bit of a struggle, but he deserved the decision he got in the end.
That is how we got here. Neither man is up to the standards of the absolute top two guys in the division. When those men are Vasyl Lomachenko and Mikey Garcia, however, few would be. In fact, the biggest opportunity here is not found in the world title itself, but in the reality that the winner will next meet Lomachenko in December for a career high pay day and a once in a lifetime opportunity in the sport. That won’t end well no matter who wins this, but I’m sure they’ll enjoy the check. Apparently both men have already signed the bout sheet contingent on having the title to bring to the December matchup.
As for this fight as a piece of entertainment, it is promising. Both men tend to be in fan friendly fights. When he is on, Jose Pedraza is the better boxer. Ray Beltran is the stronger, more physically imposing man in there and Pedraza has struggled with inconsistency though. I do think that Ray Beltran is probably too much for Jose Pedraza at lightweight. I expect him to score a stoppage. I also expect him to get hit a fair bit along the way too. Basically I expect a good fight in the main event.
I can’t say the same for the co-main event. New super bantamweight titleholder Isaac Dogboe (19-0, 13 KOs) is a dynamic and super exciting addition to the true world scene so I look forward to the fight anyway, but this one reads like a squash match. We’ve already seen Dogboe rally from extreme early adversity thanks to his unrelenting confidence and pressure to storm back and stop and elite young fighter in Jessie Magdaleno. Hidenori Otake (32-2-3, 14 KOs) is a solid domestic level Japanese fighter, but he was soundly overwhelmed by Scott Quigg in his one flirtation with world level a couple years ago. Plus, he’s 37 now. Quigg is a really good, really solid fighter, but Dogboe brings a different level of dynamic ability too. Otake is going to end his night on the canvas.
The show starts at 10:30 PM Eastern on ESPN. The ESPN+ prelims begin three hours earlier at 7:30 PM Eastern featuring gold medalist Robson Conceciao, Felix Verdejo conqueror Antonio Lozada Jr, Arnold Barboza fresh off his victory over Mike Reed, and more. At least I believe those men are in action. That was the plan a while back, but Top Rank doesn’t have a bout sheet available and boxrec has had everything but the main two fights disappear from their schedule for some reason. I still expect them to be on, but that is all strange and worth noting just in case.
