Oscar Valdez v Scott Quigg: The Brit's an underdog but won't be easy to get rid of

Oscar Valdez v Scott Quigg
Sunday, 03:00 GMT
Live on Sky Sports

Englishman Scott Quigg travels to the Stub Hub Center, Carson in an attempt to pick-up the WBO world featherweight title. Easier said than done with undefeated Mexican hot-shot Oscar Valdez standing in the opposite corner.

This will be the fourth defence of Valdez's title and he's favourite to continue his dominance, marked up as a 1.27 jolly on the Betfair Exchange. That suggests Quigg is making a wasted trip across the Atlantic, but the visitors will have concrete plans to bring the strap back to British shores and open the division up a bit. Can they do it?

Valdez has chinned five of last seven opponents

Fighting out of Sonora, Mexico Oscar Valdez has beaten each of the 23 men placed in front of him so far, dealing with 19 of those opponents well inside the scheduled distance. Tipped for the top early in his career, the ace finally realised his ambition of becoming a world champion when beating Argentinian Matias Rueda inside two rounds in the summer of 2016. An impressive result, he hasn't looked back since.

Valdez won the bauble with a stunning knockout and defended it by cutting down Hiroshige Osawa in Las Vegas next time. Five of the champion's last seven wins have come inside-the-distance and another early night goes at 9/4, market top price on the Sportsbook. Each of his last two outings have followed the 12-round script and a hat-trick of points wins is 6/5 jolly (Betfair Sportsbook).

Traders seem wary of Quigg's power

Scott Quigg goes in as the more experienced man and will be hoping to make that extra time as a professional fighter pay to upset the odds. 34 wins, 25 by KO, against one defeat and two draws, the 29-year-old from Bury saw the spare come at the hands of Carl Frampton in that famous 2016 blockbuster that ended as a bit of an anti-climax. A split decision was the result that night but it looked a little generous on the 5ft 8inch orthodox boxer.

Quigg had no trouble bouncing back when rhyming off a three-fight winning run with two of those coming before the end of the ninth. He may carry a 68% knockout average, but the Brit has never been considered a fighter with concussive power in his hands and that's why there's 7/2 on him to win the title by KO. A chunky offer but it's deemed a more realistic outcome than the points verdict on foreign soil, 7/1 the call there. Both prices can be found trading on the Sportsbook. Prefer to keep it simple? The away win is 3.45 through the Betfair Exchange.

The underdog may have been treated harshly by odds-makers across the board as he'll perform better than his pre-fight odds suggest. Is he good enough to win it? We don't think so, but he won't be easy to budge.