Born a survivor, Valero wants to test his skills against Pacquiao

By Luis Fernando Llosa

Standing only 5 feet, 7 inches tall, Edwin Valero may be one of the hardest-hitting boxers in the world. AP

Reprinted from SI Latino

At 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. A cathedral-like hush fell over the gym the moment Valero, the former WBA super featherweight champion, stepped through the ropes. Fighters, trainers and gym rats all watch intently as the Venezuelan buzz saw takes apart his 10th sparring partner in six months.

"We're having a hell of a time finding guys willing to work with him," says his head trainer, Ken Adams. "He's knocked guys out during sparring sessions. And that's with 16-ounce gloves, head gear, and him holding back."

Indeed, Valero, a 5-foot-7 southpaw, may be pound-for-pound the hardest-hitting boxer in the world. 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. 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. The ruling effectively banned him from fighting in the U.S. and obliged Valero to take to the international circuit, where he headlined fight cards in countries as far-flung as Panama, France and Japan.

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. He won his first 18 professional bouts by first-round knockout, terrorizing opponents in the manner of Mike Tyson circa 1985. 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.

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Valero's life story is as riveting as his ring work. 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, María Eloisa, and four siblings. 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. "I did not have a normal childhood," says Valero. "It was work, work, work. I gave my mother everything I earned. We had barely enough to eat."

When he was 13, having dropped out of school, he joined a taekwondo academy across the street from his fruit-selling perch. "The only sport I'd ever played until then was marbles," Valero says. "There was never time."

After nine months of training, however, his mother forced him to stop; the monthly dues at the academy cut too deeply into his earnings.

But Valero's lust for combat had been ignited. Working at a bicycle shop in El Vigía, he learned from its owner about the Gimnasio Francisco Morochito Rodríguez, and when he walked into the facility he knew instantly that he had to become a boxer. "I told my older brother, 'Edward, we have to box. It's free!' and that was it," says Valero. "I quit work. I quit everything. I moved into the gym that night."

Without any income, unable to afford the daily bus fare to and from Bolero Alto, Edwin persuaded his mom to let him live at the gym under the supervision of trainer Oscar Ortega. For the next eight years, Valero trained and slept at the gym, which often housed a dozen or more amateur fighters preparing for local and state tournaments.

Valero quickly became a star amateur, winning a national championship at 15, in 1996, and again, twice, in 1998. He compiled a record of 86-6, with 57 knockouts. But outside the ring he was a hotheaded street brawler who demanded respect and emulated the teenage toughs of the barrio he roamed without parental supervision. "From the age of 9, Edwin was always getting into fights at school and in the street," says his mother. "Some of his friends from around the gym were really bad. They robbed and killed people."

By Valero's count he is the only survivor among a group of 30 friends from those years. "They were all killed by the police or their enemies," he says. "In that world you dealt drugs, stole, or worked as a hit man. Boxing is what saved me. I trained hard and never once used drugs or even smoked a cigarette."

He trained daily with Ortega, who was at the gym every afternoon for four hours, and he ate his meals at Ortega's house. Otherwise Edwin was on his own. "I had the keys to the gym, and when there were no tournaments pending, I often slept there alone," he says. "Nobody was watching me." He thrusts his hands forward to show a dozen jagged scars on his knuckles. "Look," he says. "These are all tooth marks. I liked to fight in the streets."

Brawling and petty thievery earned him 14 stints in jail. But he says he received preferential treatment as a top-tier athlete, and Ortega was always able to spring him within a week.

Until he got in too deep. When Valero was 16 he took to robbing motorcycles from university students at gunpoint. He stashed the bikes in a cobwebbed storage room at the gym, alongside a broken heavy bag. "I thought I'd never get caught," he says, "but the police were watching me." Sure enough, he was nabbed leaving the gym with a stolen bike. "I spent the next six months in jail," Valero says. "If I hadn't been underage it would have been 15 years." At one point he learned that someone had put out a contract on him. "But the hit man he hired was a friend of mine," Valero says, laughing, "so nothing happened."