![]() “The only sport I’d ever played until then was marbles,” Valero says. When he was 13, having dropped out of school, he joined a taekwondo academy across the street from his fruit-selling perch. “I did not have a normal childhood,” says Valero. His parents separated when he was 7, and by age 9 Edwin was splitting time between school and the central bus station in the city of El Vigía, a 40-minute ride away, where he spent afternoons picking and selling fruit to supplement his mother’s meager income as a dishwasher. He was born in the mountain hamlet of Bolero Alto, in the Andean state of Mérida, where he shared a tiny two-room house with his father, Domingo, a truck driver his mother, MaríaEloisa, and four siblings. Valero’s life story is as riveting as his ring work. But fighting abroad kept him off the radar, except among diehard fight fans who have tracked his career on boxing websites and in grainy YouTube fight clips. He won his first 18 professional bouts by first-round knockout, terrorizing opponents in the manner of Mike Tyson circa 1985. Valero has a rare blend of raw power and blazing speed that, under more propitious circumstances, would have made him a pay-per-view sensation. and obliged Valero to take to the international circuit, where he headlined fight cards in countries as far-flung as Panama, France and Japan. The ruling effectively banned him from fighting in the U.S. In 2004, after a routine MRI revealed head trauma that Valero sustained in a motorcycle accident before he turned pro, the New York State Athletic Commission denied him a fighter’s license. Yet despite his 24-0 record, with 24 knockouts (you read that correctly: all knockouts), the young fighter has never had a marquee matchup in U.S. Indeed, Valero, a 5-foot-7 southpaw, may be pound-for-pound the hardest-hitting boxer in the world. And that’s with 16-ounce gloves, head gear, and him holding back.” “He’s knocked guys out during sparring sessions. “We’re having a hell of a time finding guys willing to work with him,” says his head trainer, Ken Adams. Fighters, trainers and gym rats all watch intently as the Venezuelan buzz saw takes apart his 10th sparring partner in six months. A cathedral-like hush fell over the gym the moment Valero, the former WBA super featherweight champion, stepped through the ropes. Edwin Valero on his way to a knock out victory over Mexican Antonio DeMarco in FĪt the Top Rank Gym in Las Vegas, one block west of the neon Strip where boxing superstars are consecrated, Edwin Valero is pummeling another hapless opponent.
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