WBO Champ Oscar Valdez would prefer Warrington unification to Frampton fight

Josh Warrington has overtaken Carl Frampton and moved to the top of WBO world featherweight champion Oscar Valdez’s wish list.

On Saturday night Valdez made a successful return to the ring after an 11 month lay off and having recovered from a broken jaw which was sustained during his win over Scott Quigg.

The popular Mexican scored four knockdowns en-route to a seventh-round a stoppage win over Italian Carmine Tommasone at Ford Center at the Star, the training facility of the Dallas Cowboys.

The victory saw Valdez put the injury doubts behind him and retain one of the four titles in a red hot 126lbs division.

After the clash the Top Rank fighter claimed he was now ready to try and unify rather than target a much-mooted clash with Frampton. Rather than call out WBA champ Leo Santa Cruz or WBC belt holder Gary Russell Jr he set his sights on the IBF champion Josh Warrington.

“If it’s possible, let’s unify belts,” Valdez said.

“Everyone wanted to see the Frampton fight, but now that he lost to Warrington, the belt is over there [in England]. I’d love for that fight to happen.”

A clash with Warrington, who defeated Frampton to retain his title in December, might not be too straight forward as he has been mandated to fight Kid Galahad next by the IBF.

With Top Rank boss Bob Arum stating he would like to see Valdez versus Frampton and ‘The Jackal’ himself stating that would be one fight that would force him to stave off retirement it may open doors for an Mexico v Ireland world title fight.

Regardless of what’s next, the 28-year-old double Olympian was just happy to be back and even against a 34 year old fighting outside Italy for the first time he looked impressive.

“I was very excited. I wanted to get off that ring rust. I got the job done,” Valdez said.

“Let’s move on to bigger and better things.”