December 5th @ Staples in Los Angeles, broadcasting on Showtime PPV. WBA lightweight title on the line, second defense of Davis. Cruz is a replacement (though not a short notice one, in excess of a month) for the disgraced Rolando Florencio "Rolly" Romero Moreno, the number one ranked WBA mandatory. The challenger is himself #7. He is coming off perhaps the feather in his professional cap so far, getting the nod over Francisco Javier "El Bandido" Vargas Peláez over ten rounds in an often ugly slugfest. This of course, is an old (both chronologically, somewhat, for a lightweight - and definitely in ring years) Vargas with two grueling losses to Berchelt under his belt, so maybe not the high water mark you want for a world title challenger. Likewise, blitzing Diego Armando "2Fuego" Magdaleno in under a minute would have been a lot more impressive once upon a time. Victories over José Matías Romero, Josésito Felix, and Thomas Mattice are ...decent, nothing more. Stylistically, he is a spunky and usually effective (by hook or by crook) offensive fighter - almost counterintuitively, despite his many flaws, excesses, and inefficiencies. The kid will throw hard punches from a standstill with his arms, head and sometimes the full weight of his upper half closing multi-step distances and only remember at the last possible moment to fire the synapses to deliver the message to his legs "¡Oye, vámonos!". He also sometimes punches with his eyes closed during exchanges. Yikes. That said, he does pack a wallop and is, though shorter than Davis (himself often mockingly called a "midget" relative to most at 135lbs) a solid natural LW. That means he does have at least the proverbial banger's chance against the southpaw champion, who is long inured to defensive lapses and lazy habits of his own despite having been touted as the perfect blend of talent and skill early in his career. For this reason alone the bookmakers have installed him at the +700 underdog - not too much wider than Romero had been.
If he pulls his usual kamikaze act, I wouldn't be shocked to see Cruz suffer the same humiliating fate as his countryman LSC and their fellow Mexican by descent (American by nationality) Mario Barrios - that is, beaten at their own signature game and stopped on body shots. My hunch is that, as we often see with father-son tandems, Isaac Cruz Sr. will fail to implement any changes sufficient to rise to such a large task and will give increasingly bad advice when things inevitably begin to spiral.
They are doing their best to puff up this joke, no hope bum of an opponent. I’ll give Tank’s team credit, they found the only LW on the planet shorter than Tank. That must have been challenging. This is a disgraceful cherry pick for a so called up and coming fighter. Hope we see Tank fight a top five guy in his weight class (not a midget moving up) in ‘22. The odds of that happening are slim but not as slim as his next opponent’s chances in this fight. Tank will KO him and his fans will pretend he KO’s Sugar Ray Leonard. It’s funny to watch but pathetic at the same time. What happened with all of the Josh Taylor talk? He’s not a midget or a small guy moving up. He’s not washed up or unskilled. That means we will never see Tank step up to fight him despite all the gum flapping from the Davis camp.
Who's "they" - PBC? I certainly don't think my OP was much of a puff-piece, fairly honestly critical about his level and chances in my opinion. If this was the opponent they chose in the first place, yeah, it would be fair game for ridicule. Because it was a substitution, it gets a slight pass. That said, Romero wasn't even a terrific challenger on paper in the first place. Besides, if they had five weeks to scramble to find somebody - Roman Andreev is higher in the WBA rankings (#4) and like Cruz hasn't fought since June...so, not sure what their excuse was to pass him over. Not that he's the man for the job necessarily, but he's a classier operator than Cruz and Romero.
Cruz is TBRB's #6 ranked LW. That is all of a sudden a shameful cherry pick title defense? Im not a Gervonta fan, rooting for him to lose as usual, but holy cow the hate on this forum for him is real.
To be fair the undercard is almost PPV worthy itself, and deserves a better main event. Eduardo Antonio Solorza "Zurdito" Ramírez vs. Miguel Ángel "The Scorpion" Marriaga, 10 rounds @ featherweight Sergey Vyacheslavovich "The Technician" Derevyanchenko vs. Carlos "The King" Amado Molina, 10 rounds @ middleweight Sebastian Alexander "Towering Inferno" Fundora vs. Sergio "El Niño" García Gómez, 12 rounds @ super welterweight in a WBC eliminator That's....actually pretty good.
They chose a sexual predator no Hope bum as his first opponent and replaced him with a midget no hope bum. Big difference I guess. Typical Tank opponent. Any thoughts on Tanks Twitter battle with Josh Taylor. Do you see him fighting another bum in his next fight or someone like Taylor? How about a top 5 LW? I’m just kidding, you know the answers to those questions. Maybe he will give the midget a rematch.
Considering this midget you are going on about is the #6 LW? Yeah. Brilliant stuff you typed up there. Would read again.
Well, first off TBRB are sure as hell not infallible. Second, of course they would rank him as he features in all four major orgs' top fifteen; you'd be hard-pressed to find someone of whom that is true who fails to appear in TBRB and Ring Mag rankings as well. He does have a slew of decent (but not incredible) wins. Him being a ranked contender makes sense. Failing to see him as pretty hopeless in this one, however, makes even less sense. All you have to do is watch a few of his fights to see how basic he is. Tank is going to shred him with counter punches, especially downstairs while he's lobbing wide nonsense up top from too far away. It wouldn't be a totally unreasonable defense for Davis, even if Cruz was the originally scheduled opponent, if he was regularly defending the belt against quality natural lightweight challengers (instead of capturing it vacant two years ago versus a shot blown-up featherweight and defending once in what absurdly was also somehow a super featherweight title bout with yet another natural featherweight in LSC)
I for one am shocked to see a soon 30 year old Tank fighting another Mexican I've never heard of. Completely shocked at this.
You really think Cruz is legitimately the 6th best LW in the world? He’s probably not even the top 6 LW in his own gym. You can’t be this stupid, right? He’s literally faced no one and suddenly out of the blue he’s top 6? He’s nowhere near the top ten. A bum who was a late replacement for another bum.
