Luis “Pantera” Nery

Luis Esteban Nery Hernández is a Mexican professional boxer, who was born on December 12, 1994

He is a two-weight world champion, having held the unified WBC and Ring magazine bantamweight titles between 2017 and 2018, and the WBC super bantamweight title from 2020 to May 2021.

Nery was born and fights out of Tijuana. He only fought 9 amateur bouts, winning all of them. Five of them ended by way of knockout.

Boxing Profile – Luis Nery – Professional Carreer

Early career and WBC Continental Bantamweight Title Run

Nery made his professional debut in May 2012 at the age of 17.

Nery won his first 18 fights before challenging for the vacant WBC Continental bantamweight title against Martín Casillas.

Casillas was down twice during the fight; as Nery took a unanimous decision (100-88, 99–89, 98–90).

Nery’s one defense of that regional title came against former interim super flyweight world champion David Sánchez.

After an early head clash that threatened to stop the fight, Nery dominated Sánchez landing a series of power punches that broke Sánchez down.

The former interim titlist was down in the 5th round and retired on the stool.

In December 2016, Nery was knocked down for the first time in his pro career; in the first round of a bout against Raymond Tabugon.

Despite the knockdown, the fight was mostly on one side as Nery battered Tabugon until the referee stopped it in the fourth round.

Nery vs. Yamanaka

Although Nery spoke of challenging for a super flyweight title, his first shot at a world title would come against WBC and The Ring bantamweight champion Shinsuke Yamanaka on August 15, 2017, which he won with a sensational fourth-round stoppage.

The bout started with both fighters trading back and forth combinations, but at the start of the fourth round Nery rocked Yamanaka with a left cross.

After a brief respite in which Yamanaka seemed to regain control, Nery continued pummeling the defending champion, who was unable to defend himself.

On August 24, it was reported that Nery tested positive for zilpaterol, a banned substance.

The positive sample was on July 27; while three samples in August were negative.

Nery claimed he had failed the drug test due to food contamination.

After Nery’s B-sample confirmed the result, The Ring reinstated Yamanaka as their bantamweight champion. The WBC is expected to make a decision regarding their bantamweight title in the near future.

Nery vs. Villanueva

With the WBC yet to make a public ruling, then Nery would be facing Arthur Villanueva in a non-title bout in his hometown, Tijuana, at Estadio Gasmart on November.

In front of a crowd of 16,000, Nery beat Villanueva with a round 6 TKO, despite being down in round 4.

Villanueva claimed that the stoppage was “premature”.

On October 31, the WBC made its final ruling on Nery’s positive test.

The sanctioning body concluded that the positive test was due to contaminated food.

Consequently, the result of the Yamanaka-Nery title bout wouldn’t be overturned; but the WBC put an order for a rematch, which was eventually for March.

Nery vs. Yamanaka II

Nery was once again successful in the rematch, claiming victory with a second-round TKO.

From the outset, Yamanaka attempted to box more conservatively from the outside and had some success in this regard. Nery, however, fired back with a series of savage combinations which visibly hurt Yamanaka, before knocking him down with an overhand left.

The following round was more of the same as Nery stalked and attacked continually, knocking Yamanaka down a total of three times before the fight was off.

Ultimately, as Nery weighed in three pounds over the bantamweight limit at 121lbs, the WBC bantamweight title was only at stake for Yamanaka and remained vacant.

WBC Super Bantamweight Title and fight with Brandon Figueroa

On 26 September, 2020, Nery and Aaron Alameda fought for the vacant WBC super bantamweight title.

After twelve rounds the judges handed Nery a unanimous decision (UD) victory with scores of 110–118, 112–116 and 113–115.

He later challenged Brandon Figueroa on May 15th, 2021, where they faced off with the WBC super bantamweight title and the WBA (Regular) super bantamweight titles on the line.

Nery was seen as a favorite to beat Figueroa, with opening odds seeing Nery as a -400 favorite and Figueroa at +275; although the line later saw Nery drop to -225 and Figueroa rise to +175.

Figueroa won the fight by technical-knockout, dropping Nery with a series of body punches in the latter part of the seventh round.

As Nery was unable to rise to his feet during referee Thomas Taylor’s ten count, the fight was officially off at the 2:18 minute mark.