Yokasta Valle couldn’t get enough of the incredible welcome she received during her last trip home.
The reward was a strong performance winning the WBO strawweight belt while defending his IBF title in the first ever unification fight to take place on Costa Rican soil. The feat was accomplished after she shut out undefeated WBO titleholder Thi Thu Nhi Nguyen in ten rounds atop a DAZN show on Thursday night in front of a sold-out crowd of 5,694 at Ciudad Deportiva. Heiner Ugalde in Valle’s hometown of San José, Costa Rica.
With the win, Valle (26-2, 9KOs) is halfway to his ultimate goal at strawweight.
“I knew it was going to be a tough fight. She was a really tough fighter,” Valle admitted after the historic win. There were tough times there but she knew she would get the win. The belts stayed here.
“I’m going after the next belt, whichever comes first. It’s a dream. I want to become the undisputed champion.”
Valle extended his current 13-fight win streak after his latest achievement. Seven of those wins have come in title fights dating back to her August 2019 split decision victory over Joana Pastrana in Marbella, Spain.
It has been more than four years since Valle tasted defeat, coming in back-to-back fights against championship-level competition.
The 30-year-old, who is originally from Nicaragua but has lived in Costa Rica since the age of seven, abandoned her reign of the women’s-only atomweight title to challenge the five-division and then-WBO junior flyweight champion. , Naoko Fujioka, losing ten. round decision on the road in Tokyo in December 2017. Valle also came up short in a bitter loss to undefeated Tina Ruppercht in their June 2018 interim WBC strawweight title fight in Munich, Germany.
Germany’s Ruppercht (11-0-1, 3KOs) had his title reign enhanced as ‘Tiny Tina’ has defended the WBC strawweight heavyweight title four times. The other contender for the division title is Seniesa Estrada (22-0, 9KOs) of East Los Angeles, who holds the WBA belt and is among the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport.
“I want all the belts,” Valle insisted. “I want the WBC and WBA belts next, no matter who has them.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
