Miguel Santana had an award winning amateur boxing career, training alongside a young Jose Antonio Rivera, who is a two division world champion himself.
Half a decade later, Rivera would unsuccessfully challenge for world titles, drawing (tying) and losing to Brian Mitchell in fifteen and twelve rounds respectively, and being knocked out in seven by Juan Martin Coggi.
Santana beat Javier Fragoso, a veteran who had fought Julio César Chávez, by a knockout in the sixth round in Carolina to win the Puerto Rican national title.
Even as he was undefeated before his fight with Fragoso, Santana was largely unknown and became a celebrity in Puerto Rico only after winning the national belt.
A new Puerto Rican television channel, Tele Once, began broadcasting boxing fights weekly immediately after it was launched.
Although Tele Once largely dedicated their weekly boxing show to local fights, Santana became known by television viewers in his island, with Ivonne Class and Felo Ramirez.
Santana won three fights in 1986 before meeting Terrence Alli on September 27 of that year, as part of the program where Lloyd Honeyghan upset Donald Curry with a seventh round knockout in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Miguel Santana led a mostly quiet life after he retired from professional boxing, staying friends with Jose Antonio Rivera.