By Steve Kim
On July 23rd, hard-nosed welterweight Francisco 'Chia' Santana lost a hard-fought ten round decision to Jose Benavides at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
The fight was featured as part of the HBO Pay-Per-View undercard to the junior welterweight unification between Terence Crawford and Viktor Postol.
Now, his manager Frank Espinoza (who also handles the likes of world champions Oscar Valdez and Jessie Magdaleno) is looking to map out his 2017.
"Francisco took a well deserved break and now he's back in training and ready to get going again," Espinoza told BoxingScene.com on Thursday morning.
"I've reached out to Top Rank and Bruce Trampler to get him a date as soon as possible in the upcoming year. As usual, my guy will be ready to fight and give a good effort like he always does."
Santana, who has a record of 24-5-1 (12 KO's), is a boxer that has a fan-friendly style.
"We want to get 'Chia' moving again as fast as possible. He's a guy that is never really in a bad fight and he would never cheat the fans. Our goal is to keep him as active as possible in 2017 and position him for another big opportunity,"said Espinoza.
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com
