Photo by Suzanne Teresa/PBC
Leo Santa Cruz has gotten pounded for a couple of years. Not in the ring. In the ring, he’s an undefeated, indefatigable nightmare for other fighters. But outside the ring… Well, the dude has been worked over.
And it’s not like he hasn’t deserved it. He rose up the ranks quickly, only to exuberantly jump on the Al Haymon Express and ride it straight through a bunch of horribly overmatched opponents. Saturday night, on an ESPN broadcast of Haymon’s PBC series, Santa Cruz finally faced off with a top-level guy in Abner Mares. And he finally made good on all that goddamn potential by firing an endless barrage of punches to score himself a huge win.
Santa Cruz had fought just once at 126 pounds, so there were questions about whether or not he could handle the weight jump. He answered those questions emphatically by doing what he always does–attack, attack and attack a little more. His beard held up quite nicely as well. He didn’t appear even remotely fazed by anything Mares hit him with, and to be clear–Mares hit him A LOT.
Now certainly Mares is no Nicholas “Axe Man” Walters when it comes to punching power, but he’s no chump either. Santa Cruz proved he was what he seemed to be all along–a very good fighter. Now, what’s next?
First, a quick note–you won’t find names like Vasyl Lomachenko, or the aforementioned Walters on this list. They’re not with Al Haymon so if I were to include them as possibilities in a “what’s next” article, I might as well include fights against a Leprechaun or a Yeti. I’d actually really like to see Santa Cruz fight a Leprechaun. Anyway, these next couple of fighters will be ones that actually have a chance of getting into the ring with Santa Cruz.
The obvious choice for me would be for him to fight Gary Russell Jr. Russell has absolutely electrifying hand speed, and the southpaw could pose serious hurdles for Santa Cruz, who really doesn’t mind getting punched in the face. It would be fascinating to see if he could deal with the speed and agility of Russell, and alternately how Russell would deal with practically being suffocated by punches. Santa Cruz attacks brilliantly, Russell is a very good counter puncher. Whose style would win out?
That fight should (and I cannot emphasize SHOULD enough) be easy to make. They’re both advised by Haymon, they’re both now in the same division, and they’re both on the hunt for opponents. Russell iced Jhonny Gonzalez in March. It was a fantastic performance for somebody who (like Santa Cruz) was trying to prove that he wasn’t simply a prospect with no room for improvement.
Photo by Esther Lin
He looked excellent in beating the shit out of a guy who was coming off a shocking first-round knockout of Mares. But since then, in what has become an all-too-common occurrence for Haymon fighters, he’s been silent. Nothing since March, and nothing lined up. It should be simple–Santa Cruz vs. Russell. Both could parlay their momentum into a big-time fight.
Of course, simple addition becomes impossible when nobody can find the numbers. Who knows. Russell could end up fighting Mares. Or, he could just sit and do nothing and piss off everyone. So if that fight can’t come off, Santa Cruz could always go a different route and fight a guy like Jesus Cuellar.
The southpaw Cuellar has been on an impressive run lately, knockout out the reanimated corpses of both Vic Darchinyan and Juan Manuel Lopez. He’s got power, and he’s fun as hell to watch. Better still, he’s with Haymon. This would be an extremely risky fight for “El Terremoto,” because Cuellar has been lethal, and he’s not very well known. High risk, low reward. That usually spells the end for anything Haymon is involved with, but we’ll see.
But if I were a betting man, I’d put my money on a good, old-fashioned rematch with Mares. For starters, the fight was pretty fun, even if it wasn’t quite the shootout we’d hoped for. Plus, scorecards for this thing were all over the place, and even though I felt Santa Cruz clearly won, and by a pretty fair margin, there were those who felt Mares was right there with him.
Max Deluca, one of the ringside judges, scored it a draw, and even though I thought that was totally ridiculous, his score showed that opinions on the fight varied widely. And then there’s the cynic in me who thinks everything Haymon does is to protect his fighter from risking the dreaded L.
If Haymon wants to keep the gravy train rolling, the rematch is probably the safest play. It’s hard to envision Mares fighting any better, so chances of Santa Cruz losing are low. Couple that with the fact that the Staples Center was packed and people enjoyed the fight (especially when comparing it to most of the swill PBC has thrown at us), and we’re most likely looking at Santa Cruz vs. Mares 2.
Maybe Mares can fix the cluster fuck that is his corner and sustain the torrid pace he set in the first round for a bit longer. Seriously, when you’re contradicting each other during the fight while trying to give your fighter instructions, you have failed miserably at your job. Mares wouldn’t be the worst choice (Cristobal Cruz is available, I hear), but Santa Cruz had better damn well keep going forward with his opponents. He toiled in the Land of Mediocrity for far too long. Pulling a Danny Garcia now and taking two steps back would sicken even his most ardent supporters.
He got his big win. Let’s see the next one.
Header photo by Suzanne Teresa/PBC
