Junior lightweight Eduardo “Rocky” Hernandez stampeded to a technical knockout of Daniel Lugo at Palenque de la Féria National de San Marcos in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
In front of a home crowd, Hernandez and Lugo, from Mexico City and Sonora, respectively, put on a fan-pleasing action fight. The bout, which headlined a DAZN card stacked with Mexican fighters, started at a quick pace and only intensified.
Hernandez was coming off a brutal loss to O’Shaquie Foster in which Foster stopped him in the 12th. He would have won a majority decision had he made it through the final bell, missing out on winning a title by all of 22 seconds.
Although it took some time for him to get into full swing, the 26-year-old Hernandez did not look like a fighter who had been stopped in his previous outing.
Early on, Hernandez fought with his hands down, as if trying to bait Lugo, 29, into throwing wildly and leaving himself open. He boxed effectively at times, but Hernandez was less aggressive than viewers had become accustomed to seeing him.
In the third round, Lugo (27-3, 18 KOs) backed Hernandez into a corner and landed a series of power punches that wobbled him, forcing Hernandez to play defense for the rest of the round.
Hernandez (35-2, 32 KOs) rebounded in the fourth, landing several uppercuts during a prolonged phone-booth exchange in the center of the ring.
Then Hernandez commenced a spectacular fifth round, showing off his engine as he battered Lugo with power punches for almost the entire three minutes. Though Lugo survived the round and wasn’t even badly hurt, a stoppage via accumulated punishment looked imminent from the very start of the onslaught.
It didn’t come in the sixth, but “Rocky” put the fight to bed in the seventh, hurting Lugo with an uppercut and forcing a referee stoppage after yet another sustained barrage of big shots. Though Lugo did good work early and never shied away from the fight, it was torn from his grasp once Hernandez clicked into top gear. From the fifth round on, Lugo could only attack during small openings in Hernandez’s unyielding output.
Referee Alejandro Lomeli stopped the bout at 2:17 of Round 7.
Lugo initially protested the stoppage but had taken immense punishment in the previous two and a half rounds. “It did surprise me how hard he hit,” Lugo admitted in the ring after the fight.
Hernandez said after the fight that he drew on the experience of losing to Foster when Lugo wobbled him.
“I want that world title shot,” Hernandez affirmed. “O’Shaquie Foster, Joe Cordina, Oscar Valdez, I just want you to know that Rocky Hernandez is ready for you.”
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