Jorge Castaneda, of Laredo, looks to pull off the trifecta. He has beaten two of Eddie Hearn's top 130-pound prospects and now he looks to beat former world champion Kid Galahad. Castaneda, 15-1 (11) will defend his WBC International Silver Super Featherweight Title that he won back on October 30th.
2021 was a breakthrough year for the Gateway City native, after being out of the ring for all of 2020, Castaneda came back with a vengeance. He was used as an opponent for one of Matchroom Boxing's elite prospects, Otha Jones III, and was supposed to lose. Castaneda had far, far, different plans and outclassed the unbeaten OJ3 on the undercard of Andrade-Williams back in April of last year. Six months later Hearn took the Laredo native over to the UK to challenge a more experienced fighter in Youssef Khoumari but the result was the same. Castaneda rallied and pulled out a decision victory over Khoumari to capture the WBC international silver title in October on the undercard of Chantelle Cameron vs Mary McGee at the 02 Arena in London
This time Hearn brings the tough Texan back to the UK but at the Motorpoint Arena, in Nottingham as part of the Leigh Wood VS Mick Conlocard. Castaneda will look to move to 3-0 against Matchroom Fighters in just a 12-month span. Galahad certainly represents the biggest challenge of the three. Galahad, who is moving up from featherweight to super featherweight, briefly held the IBF 126-pound world title. He stopped Jazza Dickens in August of last year before losing the belt to Kiko Martinez in what was a shocking upset in his inaugural defense this past November.
Laredo is best known in the boxing world for producing the Canizalez brothers Orlando and Gaby both held world titles. Orlando held the IBF bantamweight title from 1988 to 1995 and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Gaby won the WBA bantamweight title by knocking out Richard Sandoval in the seventh round of the scheduled 15 rounder in 1986. He also captured the WBO version of the title in 1991 when he stopped Miguel Lora. Should Castaneda defeat Galahad, he will find himself in an excellent position to challenge for a world title later in 2022. The current champion in the 130-pound division is Oscar Valdez, Shakur Stevenson, Roger Gutierrez, and Kenichi Ogawa.