Oscar Valdez Opens Up About Training At 33 & Being an ‘OG’

Boxing is one of the few sports in which the hourglass on your career is flipped when you hit your 30’s. Time is not on your side. At 33, former two-division champion Oscar Valdez (31-2, 23 KOs) looks to one day return to championship glory, but the journey begins with his fight against Liam Wilson (13-2, 7 KOs) on March 29 at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, AZ. 

Within the last two years, Valdez had two shots at the super featherweight title and came up short both times. Valdez had a unanimous decision loss to Shakur Stevenson in April 2022 and another unanimous decision loss against Emanuel Navarrete in August 2023. Both were heartbreaking losses for Valdez, and fans started questioning whether the former featherweight & super featherweight champion had been in too many wars and was closer to retirement rather than just being beyond his prime years.

FightsATW caught up with Valdez at the press conference in Las Vegas, NV after Teofimo Lopez vs Jamaine Ortiz’s weigh-in. Valdez, dressed in an all-black suit, mingled with the media and fans waiting for photo ops, rather than ducking behind the gate and heading to the back. This is Valdez in a nutshell: a guy who does not allow his past glory, ego, or both to get in the way of being a stand-up individual.

While talking about the fight is interesting, Valdez’s perspective at this point in his career was something people wanted to know more about. How does Valdez process being considered an “OG” in boxing? When asked, he chuckled and said he understood how people could label him as such, but he thought carefully and gave a genuine answer.

“It feels cool and weird (Being called an OG),” said Valdez. “I was thinking about that not too long ago. I said to myself, ‘I just turned pro not too long ago. At least, I think I did.’ It’s been more than ten years, and time does fly by. Now I start to pay attention to what my father and Grandfather would tell me, and that’s to take advantage of time because it goes by really quickly.”

Valdez didn’t stop there, as the topic seemed to be one that he’s been juggling in his mind more often than not. “I don’t feel like I’m 33. I still feel good and wiser. Am I still good? Those are questions I ask myself. I tell my father, ‘The day you tell me that I have to retire is the day I will retire. ‘ The boxer is the last person to know when it’s time to hang up the gloves.”

Knowing when to hang up the gloves is a complex thought to process if you are a fighter. The roar of the crowd, the attention, the money, and the adrenaline are all hard to replace. Valdez spars and trains with fighters in their 20’s to gauge where he stands physically, and admits he is still slightly ahead of the young guns.

Being older also means knowing what works for you and what doesn’t while being open to new things. One of those things new to Valdez is meditation, and he has used it to keep focused while he trains and in daily life. “I noticed that when I’m in the ring, I lose focus as I hear the people cheering, and I want to give them what they want.”

Meditation is something that people will often use to escape all of the noise from the world and distractions brought on by social media. Valdez acknowledges those same distractions, so meditation is critical to him at this stage.

“Meditation brings a lot of peace and more focus on the instructions. We are in the Social Media era. We have too many eyes on you, people supporting and criticizing you. If you don’t know how to manage all of that, you take that to the gym, and you aren’t paying attention to what you are doing in the gym. Once I meditate and do my breathing exercises, I go to the gym and know I’ll get 100 percent of a good workout with whatever they are telling me in the gym.”

While meditation has been added to his arsenal, working smarter and not harder is something he has learned to do now that he is older. Valdez is a fighter who writes everything down to compare notes and uses comparative analysis to determine where he has progressed or dwindled. The 33-year-old said he still has some of the same results from his workouts compared to when he was 25. He said his speed and training were slightly off, given his age, but not by much. 

With this training camp and likely the most critical fight to determine his future career path, Valdez has a certain level of expectation for himself. 

“Obeying commands,” said Valdez with confidence. “I consider myself a good soldier in the ring. Mike Tyson said it best: ‘We all have a game plan until you get punched in the face,’ and that’s 100% true. You get hit in the face and feel some type of way. You want to sit down and duke it out, which is where the macho comes out, but that’s not always the smart thing to do. I always tell myself not to do it (go blow for blow with an opponent), but 80% of the time, I end up doing it anyway.” Valdez continued, “I have a chance to become a world champion again, and I’m more focused than ever.”

Valdez’s fight against Wilson will either prove that he still has enough left for another world title run or that he needs to consider retirement as a result of the wars in the ring. Whichever way it goes, tune into ESPN+ on March 29 to see which path Valdez’s career takes.

Abraham Gonzalez

Abraham Gonzalez is the founder of FightsATW. His journalistic work has been published and used across several platforms to include online, network TV and promotional companies. He is an American Public University alumnus and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA). Abraham was the Managing Editor for NYFights, Big Fight Weekend, contributed to FanSidedMMA and ProBoxTV.

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