Former interim WBC lightweight champion Antonio DeMarco (23-2-1, 17KO) offered no excuses once he touched down in his hometown of Tijuana, MX, Sunday afternoon, after his loss against the now full-fledged WBC king Edwin Valero (27-0, 27KO) last Saturday night in Monterrey, MX. “I don’t have an exact response to what happened because I don’t know. I can’t explain why my body didn’t respond,” DeMarco said. “I do admit that in front of me I had a great champion, there is nothing to discuss. At one point of the fight, I couldn’t execute our game plan,” the 24-year-old DeMarco added. “I tried to go toe-to-toe but Valero was intelligent. He deserved to win.”

DeMarco mentioned that his trainer, Romulo Quirarte, wanted to stop the fight at the end of the eighth but that he begged for another chance. Once Quirarte saw that DeMarco couldn’t better his performance, he stopped the fight.

“There are no excuses, Valero was the winner and there are nights when things don’t go your way,” DeMarco stated. “I promised my wife and daughter that I am going to be a world champion and this isn’t going to stop me. I have gotten up from worse.”