By Miguel Rivera

At the Palenque Vicente Fernandez in Gomez Palacio, Durango, Mexico - former multi-division world champion Cristian Mijares (55-8-2, 26 KOs) had all he could handle in winning a twelve round unanimous decision over previously undefeated Shohei Kawashima (14-1-2, 3 KOs) of Japan.

The closely contested battle was scored 115-113 by all three of the ringside judges. With the victory Mijares retains his WBC silver featherweight championship.

Mijares gets closer to gaining a mandatory challenge of full WBC featherweight king Gary Russell Jr.

In the co-feature, former WBO/IBF champion Francisco Rodriguez (20-4-1, 13 KOs) stopped Crison Omayao (20-13-3, 7KOs) in in five rounds. Omayao went down three times.

Ivan Alvarez (24-7, 16 KOs) won a unanimous decision over Javier Prieto (27-10-2, 20 KOs) with scores of 79-75, 79-73 and 79-75.

The victory for Mijares was his sixth since losing a twelve round unanimous decision to Leo Santa Cruz back in March of 2014, which took place at super bantamweight.

Mijares, at 35-years of age, has come a long way since his three fight losing streak to Vic Darchinyan and Nehomar Cermeno back in 2008-2009.  Many felt his career was finished at that point, but then he won his next eleven fights including the IBF super flyweight world title.

After winning a TKO victory over former world champion Rafael Marquez in 2013, he lost a controversial split decision to Victor Terrazas when they battled for the vacant WBC super bantamweight title.

He picked up another major win in June, when he won a twelve round majority decision over previously undefeated rising prospect Andres Gutierrez to capture the vacant WBC silver belt.

Mijares is now fully focused to secure a world title shot in 2017.