LAS VEGAS – Ramon Cardenas revealed that he has been dreaming about an opportunity like Sunday’s fight with Naoya Inoue since watching Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather Jnr at the age of 11.

The Mexican-American Cardenas is the challenger to Inoue’s undisputed junior featherweight title and recognizes that his heritage has contributed to his selection as the opponent to one of the world’s very finest active fighters on the occasion of Cinco de Mayo weekend.

Cardenas, from San Antonio, was a child when he watched De La Hoya-Mayweather in May 2007. Victory and the occasion that night against De La Hoya – then the world’s most popular fighter – proved transformative in Mayweather’s career, and while the 29-year-old Cardenas is unlikely to ever earn parity with Mayweather’s status or marketability, victory would transform his career in a way that previously appeared beyond his reach.

That Saul “Canelo” Alvarez – long the focal point of Cinco de Mayo weekend – is on Saturday fighting William Scull in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has contributed to Sunday’s fight at T-Mobile Arena being made.

Alvarez succeeded Mayweather as the world’s highest-profile fighter in the same way that Mayweather once succeeded De La Hoya. Mexico’s Alvarez is seeing his career near its end, and those involved in their profession will seek a successor for at least the Mexican holiday weekend in May.

“I remember the first ‘24/7’ [HBO series], De La Hoya and Mayweather,” Cardenas said at the MGM Grand, where De La Hoya was outpointed by Mayweather. “So I remember watching them and then wanting to be here.

“Fighting for a world title is one thing, but fighting for undisputed is more than I could have ever asked for, and it makes me hungry and makes me want it more. I still haven’t looked at [the titles] ‘cause they’re not mine yet.

“It’s going to be a tough fight. Inoue’s one of the pound-for-pound greats, but I’m ready for that. I’m ready for the toughest fight of my career – I’ve been saying it all camp. I picture a hard fight, but I also picture myself coming out there and doing my thing and showing the world who I am.

“Five fights ago, I wasn’t in this position at all. Now I’m able to fully focus on boxing, so I owe it all to them. Now it’s just finishing the mission. I lost an uncle on the way to this journey; I lost a trainer as well. I’m two days away from accomplishing my dream and accomplishing the mission.”

It was also on Thursday that Inoue, 32, confirmed that in the event of victory he will fight Uzbekistan’s Murodjon Akhmadaliev in September. Even if he is right and Cardenas loses for only the second time since recording defeat via majority decision to Danny Flores in 2017, he will have earned by a considerable distance his biggest purse.

“The money can go,” he said. “We’ve had world champions and legends that have millions and millions of dollars, but then they end up broke. Those titles, no one will ever be able to take that away from me – even 100 years from now, they’ll remember my name ‘cause I was one of the undisputed champions. That’s my goal. If I really wanted money, I’d get a 9-to-5 job instead of getting my head hit.

“I’m not here to collect a check, and that makes me dangerous. I’m here to win.”

Declan Warrington has been writing about boxing for the British and Irish national newspapers since 2010. He is also a long-term contributor to Boxing News, Boxing News Presents and Talksport, and formerly the boxing correspondent for the Press Association, a pundit for BoxNation and a regular contributor to Boxing Monthly, Sport and The Ring, among other publications. In 2023, he conducted the interviews and wrote the script for the audio documentary “Froch-Groves: The Definitive Story”; he is also a member of the BWAA.