The 33 year-old, who has three losses in 20 bouts on his record, has agreed a deal with Richard Schaefer that will take him up to and beyond his 38th birthday and admitted that with the Garcia fight thrown in, it was a chance he couldn’t pass up.
“After our contract with Thompson’s was over in November 2013 and we started searching for new promoters,” Herrera explained to World Boxing News.
“Although Thompson sent us a new contract in January, Golden Boy got a hold of us and sent over their contract, but both were not really satisfying. After thinking over the offers, I decided to stay with Thompson, but that was until Golden Boy called me the night before I was due to re-sign to promise us the Danny Garcia fight if we sign with them. Add to that the fact that the deal with five-years and we signed with Golden Boy as it was a great opportunity.
“We are now just awaiting the confirmation from Golden Boy, who are due to announce the fight with Danny Garcia soon. It should be finalized within a week.”
Herrera was the first fighter to defeat current WBO champion Ruslan Provodnikov 2011 and shared a very entertaining ten rounds with Mike Alvarado in April 2012, which was a Fight of the Year contender.
The Riverside native’s only other defeats were to Mike Anchondo and more recently Karim Mayfield, but Herrera is intent on avenging the Alvarado loss if he can realise his dream of becoming world champion in the spring.
“With Karim Mayfield I thought I got robbed,” said Herrera. “It was an ugly fight as he kept holding and the ref wouldn’t do anything about it. I don’t think anyone will want to see a rematch cause it was just an ugly fight.
“With Mike Alvarado, I would love to fight him again because it was a great fight. Right now though I am just concentrating on Danny Garcia and at the moment there is no other fights offered.
“I just want to add that Golden Boy was the best decision I made in my career. I am thankful that Thompson gave me an opportunity in the beginning of my career, but towards the end I was not making that much money or fights that I deserved with them.
“I think they took me as far as they can take me and they didn’t exposed me as I would’ve wanted them to. Hopefully now that I’m with Golden Boy I will get more exposed and gain more fans.”
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