Adam Lopez was deprived of a career-changing win on Saturday night but his future remains bright, according to his trainer, Buddy McGirt.
“I’m proud of Adam,” McGirt told Boxing Junkie. “To me, Adam won the fight. He lost the battle but won the war.”
The 23-year-old career featherweight moved up a division as a last-minute replacement to fight Oscar Valdez, a former featherweight titleholder making his debut at the junior lightweight limit. Valdez’s original opponent, Andres Gutierrez, was dropped from the scheduled 10-rounder after weighing in 11 pounds over the 130-pound limit.
Of course, Lopez was recruited simply as a fill-in to preserve the main event so that the A-side’s three-month training camp would not go to waste. Instead, Lopez veered from the intended script, pasting Valdez all night with sharp jabs, quick straight rights and hard left hooks, one of which sent Valdez to the canvas in the second round.
“Kid can fight, man,” McGirt said. “He’s a future superstar. He’s the real deal man. The sky’s the limit for this young man. I told him, ‘Don’t lose focus, man.’”
In the seventh, however, Valdez, answered back with a crushing left hook that hurt Lopez and led to a knockdown. When he got up, Valdez jumped on his opponent with a flurry of punches that prompted referee Russell to stop the fight, cutting short what might have been a colossal upset win for the unheralded Lopez.
Scores at the time of the stoppage. #valdezlopez pic.twitter.com/DJ5bZg6u5D
— Evan Korn (@KornerMan44) December 1, 2019
While many observers criticized Mora’s decision, McGirt respected the call.
“I’m gonna say this: The referees see more than I do, since he’s the closest man to the action,” said McGirt, who lost a fighter in the ring earlier this year in Maxim Dadashev. “I’m not mad at anybody. Maybe he saw something and just had to lean with it. He felt what he needed to do.”
Bad call or not, Lopez left the ring with an enhanced profile.
“By (stopping the fight), Mora made Adam the biggest star,” McGirt said. “It was better than going to the scorecards and getting robbed. Either way, it made Adam the bigger star.”
Indeed, two of the three judges had Valdez leading after six rounds, including an egregious 58-55 – five rounds to one – from Dave Moretti.
The real loser, McGirt insisted, is Valdez, who has to contend with the reality that he struggled visibly against a prospect who was still fighting in six-to-eight-round fights.
“Valdez has to second guess himself now,” McGirt said. “He fought a 126-pounder moving up the day before and you get your ass kicked like that for seven rounds, know what I mean? It’s going to make Valdez think. He was an Olympian and former champion. Adam knows he belongs and in 2020, God willing, he becomes a world champion.”
McGirt said Lopez was consoled by a pair of former world champions, who were called the fight on ESPN+.
“He was very disappointed but Andre Ward and Timothy Bradley had a nice talk with him,” McGirt said. “They shot straight from the hip and said they were Adam Lopez fans. They told him we didn’t want to be fans but you made us fans.”
Adam Lopez just gained a new fan
— Devin Haney (@Realdevinhaney) December 1, 2019
The crowd at the Cosmopolitan apparently felt the same way, as it booed Valdez when he gave his post-fight remarks inside the ring.
“You heard the crowd cheering Adam and booing Valdez on the way out,” McGirt said. “What better feeling is that? Tyson Fury didn’t win against Deontay Wilder and he’s a bigger star.”
McGirt also said that promoter Bob Arum offered words of encouragement. Lopez will continue to work with Top Rank, “without a doubt,” McGirt added.
Maybe there are moral victories in boxing, after all.