After a sensational amateur career that started at the age of 10 and included a 120-9 total record. Was highlighted by National P.A.L. Championships, Ringside World Championships. 2009 Silver Gloves National Championships and Junior Olympic National Championships, representing and being Team USA Captain at the 2009 Youth World Junior Olympics. Plus loads of local success including six-Dallas Golden Gloves championships. Ray "Valentino" Ximenez turned pro making his debut on September 25th on the undercard of Charles Hatley vs Emmanuel Augustus in his hometown of Dallas Texas. Valentino took on Cristoval Larrazolo, dominated him, beat him up, dropped him twice, and scored a unanimous decision victory. It was a highlight performance that made everyone in the Quick Trip Ball Park think, "wow there's a kid with world champion talent." That was the beginning of a sensational start to Ximenez's career who scored 13 consecutive victories including four by way of knockout. He fought on ESPN and had garnered national attention.
That set up the biggest moment of his career. The Texan traveled to Puerto Rico in 2016 to take on highly touted prospect and future world title challenger Christopher "Pitufo" Diaz in Diaz's backyard in a battle of highly touted undefeated Featherweight prospects. Ximenez accounted well for himself and appeared to outbox the Puerto Rican. When the judges did the unthinkable and stole the fight from Ximenez and scored it for the hometown fighter. It was the first blemish on Ximenez's record. However, it was not about to hold him down.
The Dallas native bounced back nicely from the controversial decision lost and just six months later scored an impressive UD victory over John Herrera, in Midland, Texas. He scored two more victories in Dallas looked highly impressive. Which set up his February 2019 showdown with Eugene Lagos on the main event of a big card that aired on national TV on beIN Sports. Ximenez brought the has down with a career-best performance dominating his Filipino foe over eight violent one-sided rounds.
Ximenez picked up another UD victory and was rewarded with a promotional contract with Roy Jones Jr Promotions and looked to be on a path to a world title! Ximenez displayed his confidence by saying “I plan on showing everyone that I will be the next world champion from Dallas." Everyone who had seen the Lagos fight seemed to believe him as well. In January of 2019, he took on an unknown and awkward Mexican prospect named Luis Alberto Lopez in what was supposed to be a test for the Texas prospect but one he was expected to pass. Ximenez ended up losing the first few rounds, being cut from an unintentional headbutt before rallying in the seventh and eighth rounds getting him back in striking distance. When the bout was waved off because of the head-butt and Ximenez dropped a technical decision after just eight rounds. A loss that looks not that bad in retrospect as Lopez has gone on to defeat several prospects since and has fought his way into a position to fight for a world title and a Top Rank promotional contract.
That was three years ago and due to promotional issues a global pandemic and a litany of other issues Ximenez has been out of the ring since. The now 29-year old is set to return for the first time and make one last run at that featherweight title he seemed destined to win. He will battle a rugged veteran from Houston called Darryl Hayes at Gilley’s in Dallas. Hayes has been durable and has been in with highly touted prospects such as Javi Fernandez and Joseph "Mongoose" Rodriguez of San Antonio, Floyd Schofield of Austin, and Angel Alejandro of Dallas. He has battled each man tough and valiantly but came up short in each fight. It's a scheduled six-rounder and Ximenez should get past Hayes in a bout that will serve as a metric to see how much ring rust he has gathered and how much he has left in the tank.