San Antonio - Carlos 'Famoso' Hernandez and Kevin 'Flushing Flash' Kelley are in a 'must win' fight on Top Rank's 'Return to Alamo City' fight card at the Municipal Auditorium on Thursday night.
"At this point of my career, I must win a fight like this," said Hernandez after the weigh-in today. "The same goes for Kevin Kelley. It's a honor to fight a champion like him and the winner of this fight will be the one with the most fire in his heart."
"Kevin Kelley is a very nice person - but he's going to face a whole lot of unrelentess pressure on Thursday night," said Veronica Hernandez, the wife and manager of Carlos.
Hernandez vs. Kelley will headline Top Rank's first live card on the VERSUS Network which is cabled into 70 million homes. The start time will be approximately 9:00 pm eastern. The live boxing telecast will immediately follow the TCU vs. BYU football game on VERSUS.
Hernandez, the former IBF world super featherweight champion, has a record of 42-6-1. Born in El Salvador, he now lives and trains in West Covina, Calif. He is here with his chief trainer, Rudy Hernandez.
Kelley, 58-7-2, is the former WBC and WBU world featherweight champion. He has fought 10 world champions. Kelley is trained by Don House of Las Vegas.
"Carlos Hernandez is talented, a former world champion and has a lot of ability. I am expecting a tremendous fight, a real barnburner," Kelley said.
"It's going to be a classic fight - the boxer against the slugger," Hernandez said. "Kelley could always punch and I expect to see a lot of that on Thursday night."
In the opening bout, highly-touted bantamweight Raul Martinez, 15-0, of San Antonio goes into his toughest pro fight. He faces Ilio Julio, 35-8-1, of Turbo, Colombia in a scheduled 10-round bout.
Tickets are $100 VIP, $40, $25 and are available at ticketmaster.com
First bell will be 7 pm local time.
