Cristian Mijares Tops Rafael Hernandez With Unanimous Decision

By Miguel Rivera

At the Auditorio del Pueblo in Durango, Mexico, former world champion Cristian “Diamante” Mijares (57-8-2, 26 KOs) continued his chase for another world title shot when he secured a ten round unanimous decision over Rafael Hernandez (21-8-2, 16 KOs). The scores were 96-93, 97-92 and 97-91.

It was Mijares' eight win since losing a twelve round unanimous decision to then WBC super bantamweight champion Le Santa Cruz.

While Mijares is the WBC silver champion in the featherweight limit of 126-pounds, he's been calling for a fight with WBC super featherweight champion Miguel Berchalt, who recently retained his belt with a win over Takashi Miura earlier this month. The call for Berchelt is the likely reason that Mijares' fight with Hernandez took place at 130-pounds.

Since lost to Santa Cruz, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Mijares has fought exclusively in Mexico.

He's been able to pick up several wins of note - including a win over undefeated Japanese prospect Shohei Kawashima, a decision over former champion Tomas Rojas and last June he handed the first and only defeat to Andres Gutierrez, who this weekend was scheduled to fight Carl Frampton before an accident canceled the fight.

At 35 years old, Mijares believes he still has a few more years left in the sport and wants to finish out his career by claiming another belt. Mijares is a former WBC and IBF super flyweight champion. There was a time when he was considered to be a pound-for-pound fighter, until getting knocked out by Vic Darchinyan in a high stakes unification in 2008 and then going on a three fight losing streak.