The unofficial race to become the face of Mexican boxing is on.
Super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez, the country’s biggest star over the past decade-plus, has begun to decline in the opinion of many observers. That means someone will supplant him on the coveted throne sooner rather than later.
The list of potential candidates isn’t long. Setting Alvarez and longtime star Juan Francisco Estrada aside for the purposes of his exercise, among the names that come to mind: Jaime Munguia, Emanuel Navarrete, Oscar Valdez and William Zepeda.
And, of course, there’s swarming, powerful 135-pound contender Isaac Cruz, who, at 25 and surging, might be leading the pack.
Oddly enough it was a setback that lifted “Pitbull” to his current status, his unanimous, but disputed decision against pound-for-pounder Gervonta Davis as a 23-year-old pup in December 2021. No has pushed Davis harder than Cruz, who faces Giovanni Cabrera on the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jr. card on July 29.
His fans back home certainly noticed, which he thought “was something beautiful” because acclaim came sooner than he expected. However, he believes he’s still in the process of winning them over.
“I don’t feel like I have the fans in my back pocket,” he told Boxing Junkie through a translator. “I have to keep grinding, keep working to get the fans on my side.”
The grinding resumes in less than two weeks, when he faces the rangy (5-foot-9) Cabrera on pay-per-view from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Cabrera (21-0, 7 KOs) will have been Cruz’s third relatively nondescript opponent since the Davis fight, following knockouts of Yuriorkis Gamboa and Eduardo Ramirez. Cruz (24-2-1, 17 KOs) sees Cabrera as another important step toward where he wants to be.
He insists he has no issues with motivation even though much bigger fights against the top lightweights are on the horizon.
“I don’t overlook anybody,” he said. “I prepare for every fight the same way because each win is [important].”
Indeed, if he continues to have his hand raised, the super fights will come. Cruz wants a rematch with Davis first and foremost. But he also has the likes of Devin Haney, Shakur Stevenson and Vasiliy Lomachenko in his sights.
Those fights – or at least one or two of them – would give Cruz the opportunity to join the aforementioned 135-pounders as stars in the deep division, although he feels his performance against Davis should’ve have already led to that perception.
“Absolutely I should be mentioned with that group,” he said. “I faced down the monster (Davis) when I was just a nobody. I don’t feel I’m getting recognition for that. Regardless, I don’t care what people say or don’t say.
“Results speak for themselves. Eventually, inevitably I’ll be named among the best in the division.”
And perhaps the very best from his country.
