Golden Boy Promotions unveils May 5 undercard

The biggest fight in years -- Oscar De La Hoya's junior middleweight title defense against pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather Jr. -- now has a supporting cast. Golden Boy Promotions unveiled the undercard Wednesday for the May 5 HBO PPV fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Besides the main event, the telecast will include: • Featherweight Rocky Juarez (26-3, 19 KOs), back at 126 pounds after twice failing in junior lightweight title shots against Marco Antonio Barrera last year, faces Jose Hernandez (22-3, 14 KOs) in the 12-round co-feature. They will fight for a regional belt. Juarez, a 2000 U.S. Olympic silver medalist, rebounded from the decision losses to Barrera to stop Emmanuel Lucero in the fifth round in February. Hernandez is coming off the biggest win of his career -- an HBO-televised victory against Jason Litzau. Hernandez was trailing badly before rallying to knock out Litzau in a dramatic eighth-round comeback. • Twenty-year-old junior featherweight Rey "Boom Boom" Bautista (22-0, 17 KOs), one of the brightest rising stars from the Philippines, faces Sergio Manuel Medina (28-0, 16 KOs) of Argentina in a 12-round junior featherweight title eliminator. The winner earns a shot at titlist Daniel Ponce De Leon. The undercard, with just two bouts in addition to the main event, is decidedly light for the $54.95 price tag, but the fighters figure to gain massive exposure on a worldwide telecast that will go to 176 countries. In the United States, the pay-per-view is expected to challenge the all-time record of 1.99 million subscriptions set by the 1997 heavyweight championship rematch between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson. In addition to the televised bouts, Golden Boy also announced that Billy Dib of Australia will face Jose Gonzalez of Los Angeles in a 10-round junior lightweight bout. Also on the card will be junior welterweights Rock Allen, a 2004 U.S. Olympian, and Ernest Johnson in eight-round fights against opponents to be named.