by David P. Greisman

This has been a year in which junior featherweight prospect Diego De La Hoya has stepped up his level of competition. That has led him into a good test against Luis “Orlandito” Del Valle on the undercard of Canelo Alvarez vs. Liam Smith on Sept. 17.

Like a final exam, this test will show De La Hoya’s team what he’s picked up so far and what level of challenge he’ll be ready for next year.

“This is a big step up for Diego,” said Eric Gomez, vice president of Golden Boy Promotions, on an Aug. 29 media conference call. “It’s a tough fight. Orlandito Del Valle is a very tough fighter. I know him very well. I scouted him in the past when I was doing matchmaking for Golden Boy. Depending on how he looks in this fight, we’ll sit down and go over it. He’s progressing very nicely. He had a very nice fight in his last fight [a stoppage of unbeaten prospect Rocco Santomauro in May]. He came and he excelled.

De La Hoya is 15-0 with 9 KOs. He’s just 22 years old. Del Valle, meanwhile, is 29 years old and is 22-2 with 16 KOs. He’s coming off a decision win over Thomas Snow and has rattled off four straight wins since a 2014 decision loss to Luis Rosa. The other defeat came against Vic Darchinyan in 2012.

Joel De La Hoya, Diego’s manager, called the Del Valle fight a litmus test.

“That’s one of the reasons we chose this opponent,” Joel De La Hoya said. “He needs fights like this in order to progress and find out where he’s at at this point in his career. He’s been very busy this year. Maybe a tune-up of sorts at the end of the year would be nice, unless there’s a great opportunity. He’s been busy. He’s got some really good fights under his belt. Getting by Orlandito is no easy task, but we’ll get one more at the end of the year and see what 2017 looks like. That would possibly be the time to step him up.”

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