(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Allan Fox: #5 WBA Mauricio Herrera (20-4, 7 KOs) will be facing #1 WBA Johan Perez (19-1-1, 13 KOs) in a fight for the interim WBA World light welterweight title on the undercard of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez for Erislandy Lara pay-per-view card on Showtime at the MGM Grand, Grand Garden Arena, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
This is a fight where Herrera, 34, can partially make up for the controversial 12 round majority decision he lost to WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia last March in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
It’s kind of disappointing that the Garcia-Herrera fight turned out to be so controversial, and it’s even more disappointing that Danny doesn’t want to give Herrera a rematch. Garcia gave Erik Morales a rematch, but he’s not taken same policy against the likes of Herrera and Lucas Matthysse.
Herrera said “I had a big fight with Danny Garcia and that’s what got me here. They put me with another tough guy in Johan Perez. I come well prepared and I want to show everyone who Mauricio Herrera is. What better way than on this card.”
The 31-year-old Perez is from Caracas, Venezuela. He has wins over Paul Spadafora, Yoshihiro Kamegai and Kenny Galarza. But he was beaten by Pablo Cesar Cano and he struggled to a 10 round draw against Alberto Mosquera.
The 5’11” stork-like Perez has a 3 ½” height advantage over the 5’7 ½” Herrera, but in terms of power both guys are about the same. Perez is a fighter who gets over more on using his reach against his shorter opponents. Whether that’ll work for him tonight is unclear, because Herrera has a way of jabbing his way into punching range to land his shots.
A loss for Herrera tonight will wreck his chances of taking advantage of the fame that he got from being arguably robbed against Garcia. A loss to Perez will further reinforce Garcia’s decision not to give Herrera a rematch.
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