By Ian S Palmer
Unbeaten Dusty Hernandez-Harrison will be taking on Tommy Rainone this Friday January 9 in a 10-round welterweight bout for the vacant WBC Continental Americas title. Hernandez-Harrison will be entering the ring with a perfect record of 24-0 along with 13 Kos while Rainone has a mark of 22-5-1 with just 4 Kos to his name. This bout can be seen live in the U.S. on Fox Sports 1 from the Theater in New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The 20-year-old Hernandez-Harrison is a good six-foot tall welterweight prospect who hails from Washington D.C. He turned pro at the tender age of 17 in 2011 and already has 24 bouts under his belt. He has decent power but is far from being a knockout artist. His last outing came on November 1 when he stopped Michael Clark in the first round at home in Washington.
The 34-year-old year-old Rainone is from Long Island, New York and it’s quite obvious from looking at his record that he lacks power with just four knockouts so far in his career. Rainone is more r less a journeyman fighter and will certainly go into the fight as the underdog. However, Rainone sees this bout as an opportunity to fight a big-name opponent before retiring and perhaps earning himself a decent payday. He believes a win on Friday night could earn him a shot against somebody such as Zab Judah, Andre Berto or Adrien Broner.
He has a tough task in front of him though, but he is coming into the bout on a pretty good hot streak as he’s gone 9-1-1 over his last 10 encounters. Rainone’s last fight was also back in November when he beat Carl McNickles by unanimous decision for the USBO Championship. He certainly is determined and confident, but since he doesn’t have any power he’s going to have to outbox Hernandez-Harrison if he’s going to leave the ring with the title on Friday night. Rainone has a pretty good chin so this scrap could go the entire 10 rounds and if it does he’s going to have to back Hernandez-Harrison up as much as possible and stop him from getting into a rhythm.
Prediction
This could be a pretty entertaining bout especially since Rainone sees it as his one big chance to make a name for himself. It would definitely help his cause if he had some power to speak of, but he doesn’t so he’s going to have to make the best of what he’s got. He’s lost five fights, but has never been stopped as of yet. Neither fighter has really faced any Grade A opponents and that can be expected of Hernandez-Harrison since he’s just 20 years old. The odds are this fight goes the full 10 rounds and we should see Hernandez-Harrison walk out of the ring with the belt around his waist.
