Prospect Jose Pedraza Wants to Fight Two More Times This Year

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    untitledPuerto Rican junior lightweight prospect Jose Pedraza is coming off of an impressive victory over Juan Carlos Martinez in last week’s Friday Night Fights co-main event. It was Pedraza’s third fight in 2014 and he has been making real strides toward the upper echelon of the division.

    Martinez was not Pedraza’s original opponent, but he handled the last minute change very well considering that Martinez was better than your average late replacement. Pedraza fought hard and even though Martinez had success early on, Pedraza proved too much with his left hooks to the head and body shots implemented from the start. The fight ended in between rounds with Martinez unable to answer to the start of the 7th.

    “It was a good battle. It was the game plan that led to the victory, we worked at it in camp and it worked exactly the way we hoped. We didn’t need any adjustments, we followed the plan for the whole fight and the body shots were key to victory,” Pedraza said.

    The last minute replacement didn’t affect Pedraza in the least, that may be due to the fact that Pedraza has been in that position before and knew how to approach the change in plans. Still, it was impressive because Martinez has shared a ring with some of the toughest opponents in the division like Mikey Garcia and Juan Carlos Burgos.

    He may not have been Pedraza’s toughest opponent to date, but Pedraza acknowledges he was dangerous enough considering the circumstances.

    “It was the week of the fight that they told me that there was going to be a change in opponent, but I didn’t let that get to me. I don’t train for a specific fighter, I train to fight the best. These things happen when you’re starting out, but I’m at a level where this shouldn’t happen as much, but you can’t control it sometimes.”

    Pedraza (18-0, 12KOs) isn’t done with his 2014 campaign, after all he has averaged roughly 5 fights a year since his professional career began, and he plans on making the most out of the year’s remaining four months.

    “My goal is to fight at least two more times, Lou Dibella reached out to my father about maybe fighting in September and then in December,” Pedraza said.