Jose Pedraza didn’t hesitate to take another difficult fight after his points loss to Jose Ramirez five months ago.
From Pedraza’s perspective, beating Richard Commey on Saturday night will move him into position to secure a 140-pound title shot, something that has eluded the two-division champion since he moved up from the lightweight division. Like Pedraza, Commey is a former 135-pound champion who wants to establish himself as a threat in his first fight at the 140-pound limit.
“I see Commey as a world-class fighter,” Pedraza told BoxingScene.com. “He’s coming up in weight – that’s true. But he was a champion and he’s one of the elite fighters of the division. So, I see him as a big name and as a good fighter that, if I beat him, it’s gonna put me right there in the title conversation again at 140.”
The 10-round bout between Puerto Rico’s Pedraza (29-4, 14 KOs) and Ghana’s Commey (30-4, 27 KOs) will headline a doubleheader ESPN will televise from Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma (10:30 p.m. ET; 7:30 p.m. PT). In the network’s co-feature before Pedraza meets Commey, heavyweight prospect Jared Anderson (11-0, 11 KOs), of Toledo, Ohio, will box Serbia’s Miljan Rovcanin (24-2, 16 KOs) in an eight-rounder.
Commey will fight for the first time since Vasiliy Lomachenko convincingly beat him on points in their 12-round lightweight fight December 11 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Ukraine’s Lomachenko (16-2, 11 KOs) dropped Commey in the seventh round and won by scores of 119-108, 119-108 and 117-110.
“You could tell the levels and that Loma was levels ahead of him,” said Pedraza, who lost a 12-round unanimous decision to Lomachenko in December 2018. “It was a pretty easy fight for Loma.”
Pedraza doesn’t expect an easy fight when he encounters Commey.
“I never see my opponents as levels below me,” Pedraza said. “I always say they’re a level above me as a motivational thing. I’m gonna prepare the way I see him – he’s an elite fighter. And I also see him as a champion.”
The 33-year-old Pedraza respects Commey’s power, but the former WBO lightweight and IBF junior lightweight champion is confident in his chin. Gervonta Davis (27-0, 25 KOs) is the only opponent who has stopped Pedraza in 33 professional fights.
“I expect a strong fighter, with a lot of power in his hands,” Pedraza said. “His record tells the story. But at the same time, I have faced a lot of powerful opponents before. Sometimes I have dominated them. Sometimes I have lost the fight, but I have looked good against them. So, I’m expecting a strong fighter, but I know I can handle the power.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.