SAN ANTONIO – Young boxers don’t get the privilege to fight only a handful of times a year. They have to get into the ring as often as possible to build up professional experience and build a reputation.
That’s exactly what San Antonio’s David Cardenas has done. He’s days away from fighting for the fifth and final time in 2024 before setting his eyes on bigger goals for next year.
Recommended Videos
The 19-year-old Cardenas (8-0, 6 KOs) will be headlining Triple A Promotions and South Park Boxing Academy’s fight against 37-year-old Robert Ledesma (3-13-1, 2 KOs) on Saturday. The bout will be a six-round flyweight contest held at the Alzafar Shrine Auditorium. If you cannot attend the fights, you can watch them for free live on KSAT.com and KSAT + this weekend.
This is Cardenas' second straight fight to be streamed live with KSAT.
“It means a lot, it’s a blessing, more exposure for me and the fighters coming out of San Antonio,” said Cardenas to KSAT 12 Sports on Tuesday afternoon. “I know some family members couldn’t make it (for my last fight) so they watched it on the stream. Even people that are not family, supporters, they sent me screenshots and say, ‘hey, congratulations, we saw your fight, we weren’t able to make it but we saw it live’ and it was cool.”
Cardenas is heading into this fight on a three-knockout streak, something he hopes continues this weekend but it’s not his main focus.
“That’s not the goal, the goal is to get the win by any means necessary,” explained Cardenas. “That’s not the goal, the goal isn’t to knock him out, the goal is to get the win. But if it comes, it comes and it’s been coming so hopefully, it comes again.”
The Edison High School alum waited until he graduated high school before turning pro in 2023 and is extremely grateful for the support he gets from his former school.
“I get a lot of love from Edison, they show me a lot of support, the alumni page on Facebook always post all my stuff,” said Cardenas. “Everything I do, they post it. They show a lot of love. It mean’s a lot, having their support, they have my back.”
Cardenas recently changed his hair color to red, to match his trunks he’ll wear for Saturday’s fight. He said he may continue to change the hair color with each fight, possibly making him the ‘Jeremy Sochan of Boxing’ if he actually sticks with the routine.
“I was blonde and I decided to go red, thought it would be cool,” Cardenas said. “Stay tuned, I think whatever color I wear for now on that’s probably what I’m going to be, my hair. It’s only my first time changing my hair color, maybe in the future they can start calling me that, we’ll see.”
Daniel P. Villanueva has worked with KSAT 12 for over 21 years and is an award-winning producer. To submit story ideas, email dvillanueva@ksat.com
