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Diaz Labors
in Victory
Former welterweight title challenger Antonio “Tono” Diaz overcame a sluggish start to defeat veteran Juan Pablo Montes de Oca before a lively Southern California fight crowd. Headlining a four bout fight card in Corona, CA, Diaz thanked his fans for coming out to support him and apologized for failing to deliver the expected knock out. The final tally favored Diaz 78-74, 79-73 & 79-73, yet the scorecards do not tell the whole story.
Relegated to the status of professional opponent, Montes
de Oca entered the ring on a four fight losing streak.
However, someone forgot to instruct him to fall over at
the first sign of trouble as Montes de Oca took the
opening rounds. Diaz looked tight and paid the price as
he absorbed numerous punches in the early going. In the
third Diaz turned the tide with a body assault designed
to slow his opponent. Diaz dominated the fourth with
telling right hands that stunned Montes de Oca. The
fighters traded hooks and uppercuts in an action packed
sixth. The in-fighting favored Diaz who bloodied his
smaller opponent. Though Diaz had seized control of the
bout he never took the fight out of Montes de Oca. In
the seventh the contest turned ugly and both fighters
were warned repeatedly for low blows. Despite winning
handily on the scorecards Diaz found himself in more
difficulty than anyone expected.
Welterweight Mauricio Hernandez used a steady jab and solid defense to defeat Santiago Perez over six tightly contested rounds. Perez is a polished professional who demonstrated great poise in the ring. With his hands held high Perez proved difficult to hit. Herrera, in only his sixth professional bout, called on the experience he gained in the amateurs to overcome his defensive minded foe.
Herrera’s punches were accurate and he kept his hands
busy throughout to impress the judges on route to a
60-54, 59-55, 60-54 unanimous decision victory.
In a back and forth affair between rugged welterweights the puncher bloodied the boxer but was outpointed on the scorecards and lost a close fight by split decision. In the early rounds Pavel Miranda’s sharp counter punching kept the hard charging Alex Viramontes at bay.
In the latter rounds Viramontes’ punches penetrated Miranda’s guard and bloodied his nose. The fight was won, and lost, in the middle rounds when neither fighter dictated the action.
Referees Lou Filippo and Marty Denkin favored Miranda
77-75 while referee Gwen Adair scored the bout 77-75 for
Viramontes.
In the opening bout of the evening super featherweight Daniel Hernandez cracked Ricardo Sanchez with a devastating right hook from which Sanchez could not recover. For one minute and thirty-eight seconds, the entire length of the fight, the pace was torrid.
The fighters exchanged power punches until Hernandez floored Sanchez with the hook. Hernandez beat the count but was out on his feet.
Referee David Denkin promptly stopped the fight at 1:38
of the first. Daniel Hernandez improved to 2-0 with 2
KOs. 
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