Brandon Figueroa plans on coming right at the hard-punching Luis Nery

Brandon Figueroa enters the toughest fight of his young boxing career on Saturday, May 15, against Luis Nery. Plan on it being a war. 

Brandon Figueroa is a young, talented boxer on the brink of becoming a major world champion and star, but WBC super bantamweight champion Luis Nery is standing in his way. Their Saturday, May 15 fight date nears, but Figueroa is optimistic that he’s the division’s future.

Figueroa (20-0-1, 16 KOs) is undefeated in his six-year professional boxing campaign and is coming off a September TKO victory over Damien Vazquez. However, before that fight, Figueroa faced adversity against Julio Ceja.

Figueroa and Ceja fought to a split draw. Ceja came in way overweight, which forced Figueroa to fight a bigger man. Still, he looked out of sync that night. Figueroa revealed why.

“I went into the fight with injuries,” Figueroa told FanSided. “I feel like if I wouldn’t have gone into the fight with injuries, you know, I didn’t really get the right amount of training, sparring.”

Figueroa learned a lot from the Ceja fight, particularly not to underestimate your opponent. But this time around, Figueroa feels healthy and fully prepared for anything that the undefeated Nery (31-0, 24 KOs) can throw at him. It also helps that he fought another southpaw in his last fight against Vazquez.

Luis Nery and Brandon Figueroa are both undefeated, but someone is going to leave Dignity Health Sports Park with a loss on May 15

“It’s just one of the things that transpired,” said Figueroa. “It worked out perfectly, you know because I fought a lefty. Now I’m going to fight another lefty, so things don’t really have to be readjusted much just tweak a little bit of things that, you know, work against lefties. I think over my career, I think I fought like three or four lefties, so you know, lefties nowadays are getting more common, and I’m a lefty as well.”

Figueroa has the ability to switch stances and feels more comfortable from a southpaw stance.

Figueroa is in the unfamiliar territory of being the underdog. According to Wynnbet.com, Figueroa is at +175 odds. The numbers are close, and Nery didn’t look fantastic in his last bout against Aaron Alameda, who he defeated by unanimous decision.

Nery was being trained by Canelo Alvarez’s trainer Eddy Reynoso, but the experiment didn’t work. He’s now being trained by Ismael Ramirez and is looking to return to his knockout ways.

“In the ring, I’m going for the finish,” Nery said in the final press conference. “Everything is on the line. I just have to prove what I’m capable of inside the ring. I don’t care about anything else but that.

“I think people got carried away about my performance from my last fight. You’re going to see that my power translates on Saturday. Brandon is going to be the first person to see how my power really translates to super bantamweight.”

Figueroa is fine with Nery coming forward and being aggressive. He likes to fight that way, too but feels like he’s a more well-rounded boxer than Nery.

“That’s the style that I love, you know, coming forward fighting,” said Figueroa. “At the end of the day, it’s just gonna be who’s more prepared, who’s better trained, who is more conditioned. Because I’m gonna keep coming forward. I can box it a little bit. I can switch lefty like I said. Lefty, righty, you know I can give him different angles.”

Figueroa has an abundance of confidence, but will it be enough to hand Nery his first loss? You’ll have to watch it on May 15 to find out.

You can watch Luis Nery vs. Brandon Figueroa on Saturday, May 15, at 10 p.m. ET on Showtime.