Freddy Hernandez Faces Santana in Crossroads Collision
By Francisco Salazar
If there was ever a crossroads bout, look no further than the Central Coast of California.
Former welterweight and super welterweight contender Freddy Hernandez will face upstart Francisco Santana on Friday night at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, CA.
The scheduled 10 round bout will headline a scheduled seven-bout "Central Coast Championship Boxing" card.
Hernandez (30-5, 20 KOs), from Mexico City, DF, Mexico, is less than three years removed from challenging from a world title opportunity. Hernandez was knocked out with one punch in his now-infamous first round knockout defeat at the hands of Andre Berto on November 27th, 2010.
Since then, he had lost three out of his last four bouts.
In his last bout on May 24th, Hernandez fought Delvin Rodriguez, where both fighters had their moments up until the eighth round, when the bout was stopped due to a cut suffered by Hernandez over his eye.
At first, the bout was announced as a majority decision victory for Rodriguez. However, because the cut was ruled to have been the result of a punch, the outcome was changes to a technical knockout for Rodriguez.
Hernandez can not afford another loss on his record as it could relegate him to gatekeeper status in the junior middleweight division.
However, he has faced the better opposition than Santana, (16-3-1, 8 KOs) who resides about 30 miles away in Santa Barbara.
Santana trains in Ventura at the Knuckleheadz Gym in Ventura and has won his last four bouts in a row since an eight round decision loss to Jermell Charlo on October 7th of 2011.
Santana is coming off a six round unanimous decision over Leshon Sims on June 14th.
Just six months ago, Art Hovhannisyan was unbeaten and was one fight away from fighting in a big money or title elimination fight.
However, he ran into fringe contender Alejandro Perez, who took away Hovhannisyan's '0' in a 10 round unanimous decision on February 22nd.
The Armenian-born Hovhannisyan (15-1-2, 8 KOs), who now resides in Glendale, CA, hopes to rebound from the loss to Perez on Friday. He will take on former world title challenger Daniel Attah in a scheduled eight round bout.
It is not clear whether Hovhannisyan, who turns 32 in November, will continue to campaign at 130 pounds or will move up to the lightweight division.
In his last bout on June 14th, the Nigerian-born Attah (28-15-1, 11 KOs) was knocked out in the fourth round by Rustam Nugaev.
Also scheduled to appear on the card is super flyweight Maria Suarez (5-0-1) of nearby Santa Maria. She will fight Gloria Salas (3-8-1, 1 KO) in a scheduled six round bout.
Four four-round bouts will round out the card.
Tickets are on sale and could be purchased at the Chumash Casino Resort box office or by calling 1-800-CHUMASH.
Doors are scheduled to open at 5PM, with first bell scheduled for 5:30PM.
Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. He also covers boxing for the Ventura County (CA) Star newspaper. He could be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on twitter at FSalazarBoxing
