Herrera is 23. He is 17-0. Most of those wins ended early. That’s why he’s the favorite and why very few people expect the fight to go the other way unless something weird happens.
However, the reason this fight matters is not just who wins. This is what happens next.
The WBC lightweight title is in a strange place. Shakur Stevenson still holds it, but he already has one foot out of the division. He fights Teofimo Lopez at 140 pounds in late January, and everything he’s said since then points in one direction. On. Not back.
Shakur talked about bigger fights and bigger money. He talked about 147. He didn’t talk about defending the lightweight belt. He didn’t talk about coming back to clean up the division. That silence matters.
Nothing is official yet. Belts are not vacated on interviews. But boxing usually tells you where it’s going before it gets there. Champions don’t move up for one fight and then rush back to defend against names that don’t excite them financially.
If Herrera beats Núñez and walks away with the interim belt, he suddenly finds himself in a very different position. Not crowned. Nothing guaranteed. But wait. Ranked. Have something the WBC can actually use if the division needs to move on.
That’s how these things usually work. Someone is leaving. The belt sits for a minute. And then the interim guy stops being “interim”.
Can something derail it? Certainly. Battles fall apart. Plans change. Sanctioning bodies are dragging their feet. But if Stevenson stays at 140 or moves up to 147 as he has suggested, the lightweight title does not come with him.
And if that happens, Herrera won’t have to rush anything. He just needs to be there when the call comes.
That’s what this fight is really about. Not hype. Not momentum. Just positioning. If the lightweight belt is left behind, Herrera is the one closest to it. And this is how titles change hands when no one is looking.
