Paramount, Calif.’s Charles Huerta (20-5, 11 KOs) continued his rise to the top of the super featherweight division with a split decision victory against Miguel “Miguelito” Gonzalez (20-3, 17 KOs) of Los Mochis, Mexico as the main event of the latest edition of LA FIGHT CLUB at the Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles and televised live nationally on Estrella TV’s Boxeo Estelar.

Huerta, the 31-year-old who is coming off a spectacular third-round technical knockout victory against Ivan “Striker” Delgado earlier this year, boxed intelligently throughout the fight, using short punches to outland Gonzalez in nearly every round. Huerta demonstrated that he can fight both forward and backward, using the outside to his advantage or pushing forward when he sensed Gonzalez was hurt.In the eighth round of the main event, Huerta suffered a deep cut over the left side of his head that bled profusely, forcing the referee to stop the fight 32 seconds in, sending the judges to the scorecards. Huerta won with the judges scoring the fight 77-76 and 78-75 for Huerta and one judge seeing the fight 75-78 for Gonzalez.

In the co-main event of the evening, lightweight prospect Christian “Chimpa” Gonzalez (17-1, 15 KOs) made his triumphant return after his first professional loss with an impressive third-round knockout victory against Daniel Perales (10-11-1, 5 KOs) of Monterrey, Mexico.

The 21-year-old Gonzalez began a fierce assault in the first round, pushing Perales from one side of the ring to the other with punishing left and right hooks to the body. In the third round, Gonzalez landed a thunderous hook to the body of an already bloody Perales, who dropped to his knees without enough time to beat the count, the fight being stopped at 1:14 of the third round.

“When the referee calls the fight, man, that’s the greatest feeling in the world after putting in eight-weeks of hard work in training,” said Gonzalez. “Since my last fight, I learned to be a lot more relaxed, and to really take my time and have patience inside the ring. Perales had a good left hook and had a lot of power, but we practiced my jab in the ring and we wanted to go round by round. I’m glad that we got the knockout in the third round!”

Francisco “Alacrán” Esparza (6-0-1, 2 KOs) and Fernando “Chukito” Fuentes (12-7-1, 4 KOs) opened the night’s festivities by fighting in a six-round featherweight bout.

The fight was full of back-and-forth action with both fighters taking hard left and right hands in each round. In the first round, Esparza suffered a cut above his left eye, but that did not prevent him from exchanging explosively with Fuentes, of Hemet, California, in each round of the fight.

One judge scored the fight 58-56 for the 22-year-old Esparza, while the two other judges calling it a draw with scores of 57-57.

“It is what it is, obviously the judges have a different view point from me inside the ring,” said Esparza. “We kept clashing heads, and I got a cut over my eye that I got lucky didn’t get out of control. He was a bit taller and had a bit more of a reach. Every fight is a chance to improve.”

“He was pretty tough, but he kept head-butting me,” said Fuentes. “I’m hearing that they want a rematch, and if we were to fight again, I’d like to go eight rounds instead of six. It took us both some time to warm up, and in the beginning he was a bit slow and I wish I would have thrown more punches at the start.”

VIP fighters for Thursday night’s event included Gabriel “King” Rosado, Roberto “Tito” Manzanarez, Jesus “Renuente” Soto Karass, David “Junebug” Mijares, Cesar Diaz, Joet Gonzalez, and Jousce Gonzalez.