By Keith Idec

Oscar Valdez’s unimpressive performance against Genesis Servania surprised Scott Quigg.

The former WBA super bantamweight champion expected Valdez to stop Servania. The then-unknown Filipino was undefeated (29-0), but he isn’t considered a puncher (12 knockouts), was unproven against championship-caliber opposition and had spent most of the previous seven years boxing within the 122-pound division.

None of that stopped Servania from flooring Valdez in the fourth round and giving the defending WBO featherweight champion a tougher fight than anticipated September 22 in Tucson, Arizona. The scoring suggested Valdez didn’t struggle (117-109, 116-110, 115-111), but that 12-rounder was far from easy for the former Mexican Olympian.

“I thought he was gonna probably stop Servania,” Quigg told BoxingScene.com. “I’d probably be lying if I said otherwise. But I thought he wasn’t giving Servania the credit that he deserves as well, because he put up a great fight. I do believe Valdez took him lightly, I would say. But I’m expecting the best Oscar Valdez there’s been and his best, I’m more than ready for.”

The 29-year-old Quigg (34-1-2, 25 KOs) will try to take Valdez’s WBO 126-pound championship Saturday night. ESPN will televise their scheduled 12-rounder from the StubHub Center in Carson, California, as the main event of a telecast set to begin at 10:30 p.m. ET.

England’s Quigg figures Valdez addressed a lot of what went wrong against Servania during his recently completed training camp in Mexico. He doesn’t consider Valdez vulnerable based solely on how the defending champion looked in his last fight, yet Quigg is confident he’ll upset Valdez (23-0, 19 KOs) on Saturday night.

“I don’t know how he prepared for the Servania fight,” Quigg said. “I don’t know if he took him lightly because [Servania] was moving up in weight. But the gaps that were exploited in his last fight, I had already seen. But he wasn’t fighting at a level where the opponent could capitalize on them. So, if anything, his last fight is going to improve him. You know, because he’s gonna go back and watch the tape, his trainer and team is gonna watch the tape, and he’s gonna close them gaps.

“So I’m not looking at that, thinking them gaps are gonna be there, because they’re not gonna be there. They’re gonna have worked on them. He obviously has taken this fight serious. He changed his training camp, to go out to Mexico, so we know he has prepared well and I’ve prepared as I always do, 150 percent. I’m ready. Like I said, on March the 10th, I plan on becoming a two-weight world champion.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.