Credit: Tom Hogan/Golden Boy
Hector "el Travieso" Valdez, of Dallas, boxed beautifully showing no ring rust in the early going. He worked behind a patient jab to track down his opponent Daniel Moncada of Mexico City, Mexico, who looked to use the entire ring. The Texan stayed composed, cut the ring off on his opponent, and ripped vicious body shots with both hands that began to slow Moncada down. El Travieso stayed committed to the body and by round four the Mexico City native was much more stationary as Valdez continued to rip thudding body shots on his now stationary opponent. Things escalated in the fifth round as Valdez scored with a wide left hook that sent his man stumbling to the canvas, just past the 60-second mark of the round. Moncada valiantly fought back but the writing was on the wall. Valdez had seized complete control of the fight and used the left hook again in the sixth to stagger his overmatched opponent and followed up with a right hand that opened a nasty gash above the eye of his opponent. Valdez, recognizing his opponent was in serious trouble, stalked patiently and scored with a right hand right before the end of the sixth, staggering his opponent once more. The pace slowed a bit in the seventh as Moncada tried to simply stay away from his surging opponent and Valdez was happy to continue the boxing lesson he was administering. The Dallasite picked up the pace again in the final round, to try and seal the deal for all of his Texas-based fans who were vocal for him throughout the fight and less than a minute into the round had him hurt again. This time with the right hand, Moncada continued fighting hard till the end but it was not nearly enough as Valdez cruised to the wide and well-earned points victory by scores of 80-71,79-72, and a much, much too close 78-73. For Valdez, it was his third consecutive decision victory and it ended a nearly 13-month layoff. For Moncada, the one-sided losses ended a streak of two consecutive TKO victories. moving his record to 15-0 (8) It was the first fight in just over a year and Moncada dropped to 15-6-2 (5).