This is an excellent matchup. The power, and accurate counter punching of Valdez vs the pressure, strength, and skill/toughness of Tiger.
Fantastic matchup and I don't recall ever seeing it here My thought is that Tiger can improve upon the work done by the less talented Bennie Briscoe... Valdes generally liked it when you came right at him (one of the reasons he had such trouble with Monzon, who made Valdez come to him) and certainly Tiger would do that; still, I think Tiger can do it successfully. Valdez lands some beauties and definitely has stretches of the fight in his favor, but I think his willingness to mix it up would be his undoing... You don't trade with Dick Tiger, he was too strong and too tough. Movement is what gave Tiger the most trouble (as Emile Griffith proved in winning a contentious decision over him for the title) and though Valdez was a skilled boxer, he wasn't a real mobile sort of guy. I don't think he could pull off a strategy like that. End of the day, there's enough hard exchanging to sway the fight in Tiger's favor by unanimous decision
