Unlike
most of you out there, this Thanksgiving for Leo Santa Cruz will
not include any turkey, NFL football and falling asleep on the couch in the
mid-afternoon. Instead, as you’re reading this, he'll be well on his way to Mexico City, where he'll fight on Saturday night’s “HBO Boxing After Dark” undercard
before Saul Alvarez headlines against Kermit Cintron. For the young, rising “Teremoto,”
this isn't his first time doing this.
“Well,
one time I fought, Thanksgiving was the day of the weigh-in, so I couldn't eat
till I weighed-in,” recalled Santa Cruz of his November 23, 2007 bout against Elton Dharry, his fourth
professional outing at the Morongo Casino and Resort in Cabazon, California. “It
came to my mind when I saw the date that I wasn't going to have a good
Thanksgiving.”
While
we all gorge, Santa Cruz will basically be fasting for the last few hours
before stepping onto the scales.
“You
feel tired, weak and all you want to do is eat or drink something,” he says of
the process. “Then you imagine all the food your family is going to be making
and eating. It's all a sacrifice.”
The
friendly Santa Cruz says all this with a smile. He knows that at this stage of
his career, these are some of the sacrifices he has to make. It all comes with
the territory. “There are bad days you're going to have to give up and this is
what the sport’s about, rough days, but you have to do it,” he says.
Don't
misconstrue his words; Santa Cruz loves this sport. It's not unusual for him to
be back at the Maywood Boxing Club just a week or two after
he fights. “I like doing this and I like to be ready because after a fight, if
I'm real clean, I'm not that hurt, I'll come back to the gym for the next one.
This is what I'm doing. This is what I live for and this is what I want to do,”
says the young man, whose greatest strength he possesses as a fighter is an
unyielding work ethic.
Like
many other aspiring pugilists, the sacrifices and commitment came at a very early
age. It means that holidays are often skipped; birthday parties are missed and
for Santa Cruz, no soccer and no prom as he attended Lincoln High in Los Angeles. Soccer
would get in the way of him getting into the family business and following in
the footsteps of his brothers who all fought.
“I
wanted to play sports in school and everything and I wasn't able to play. I
liked soccer too but my dad told me, ‘You have to choose between soccer or
boxing and I picked boxing. I wanted to stay after school and play but I had to
go to the gym and then my dad said I could hurt my leg or something. And I
didn't go to prom or any of the parties,” he recalled.
No
prom, huh?
“I
was just more into boxing,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Sometimes I had to be training
and I'd have to concentrate on that.” That said, Santa Cruz lives with no
regrets. “The truth, no, I never regretted it because I'm doing what I live
for. It's always been boxing. I don't regret it.”
And
it's now when those sacrifices are beginning to pay off. After a slow start to
his career, which saw his release from Top Rank, Santa Cruz is now a burgeoning
force in the bantamweight division. In 2011, he has put together a strong and
impressive list of victories. He stopped Stephane Jamoye in six, KO'd Jose Lopez
in five and then wore down the usually durable Everth Briceno in 11 in his last
outing back in July. Every fight, Santa Cruz seems to get better, perfecting
his pressure style, which sees him consistently put punches together and attack
the body. He's not a power puncher (in 17 victories, he has just nine stoppages
to his credit) but he more than makes up for it in volume and tenacity.
Santa Cruz’s manager, Cameron Dunkin, says of his progress the last year or so,
“He's really come on strong. He's really motivated and just not only a great
prospect but more than that, it looks like he's going to be a great fighter.”
According to Dunkin, the 23-year-old bantamweight is just now growing into his
tall, lean frame. “When me and Robert Garcia signed him, he was just 17 years
old and he was just a skinny, gangly kid. He had won the Junior Worlds and
stuff and you could see all the skills he had and the ability and the
tournaments he had won but there wasn't any real power there. There wasn't any
strength there. He was busy and he threw lots of punches but there was no real
strength and you knew he had to come into his own.
“But
as he got older, he kept doing the right things and working on his strength. He
matured into a man and now all those skills that he had, along with the power
and the strength and that he's matured, he's turned into a terrific fighter.”
Santa
Cruz is now under the promotional banner of Golden Boy Promotions, who stumbled
onto him, basically, by chance. Their matchmaker, Eric Gomez, admitted, “I'll
be honest with you; I had heard a lot of good things about Leo Santa Cruz and
we had [Jose] Armando for awhile, his brother, and the other brother, the one
that got sick, Robert. We worked with him a little bit. He fought for us way
back when we first started Golden Boy. He fought for us in Bakersfield. Everyone knew about the Santa
Cruz brothers but I had never really seen Leo fight but I had heard a lot of
good things about him in the gym.
“I
kinda stumbled by accident on him,” continued Gomez, “because Cameron couldn't
buy him a fight and we started working with Cameron a little. So Cameron
started talking to me about, ‘Hey, give us a chance’ and I went through the
whole spiel about the smaller weight classes. It's very hard to get them big
fights, this and that. And one day, I showed up at the gym and it was a press
workout for Daniel Ponce de Leon- and I think Ponce was getting ready for
Antonio Escalante- and I saw Leo spar for the first time and I just loved his
style. He reminded me of a young Alexis Arguello. The way he throws his
punches, he's a sharp puncher, accurate and he's got those long arms. He's
skinny, lanky, but he throws great body shots and I love that.”
Dunkin
describes his fighter’s style thusly, “He has the long arms and quick, fast
hands and just continuously beats on you and beats you to the punch. He can
counter. He can lead and he can really pressure when he wants to, put the heat
on you and he's just gotten better and better and he's a tremendous body
puncher. I have so many good things to say about him. He's terrific.”
As
for what Santa Cruz will be facing on Saturday, Gomez
admits, “It's kind of a tune-up. It's a soft opponent. His name is Jose Santion.
He's got a record of 8-6. This late in the game, we're not going to take any
chances. This has been a developmental year for [Santa Cruz] and that's the way
we want to keep it. I think next year is going to be a breakout year for him.”
2012
could be the year that Santa Cruz, who's been featured on cards broadcast on
Televisa (which are also streamed back
to the States on the internet), becomes a boxer who gets significant
opportunities on pay-per-view cards and slots on the premium cable networks.
“I want to be really careful to move him in the right direction,” said Dunkin. “I
don't want to take leaps. I want to do a steady progression with him and keep
him busy and he's a kid who should be fighting five, six a year and fighting
the right guys and maturing into a fighter and by the end of the year, he
should be ready to make a move for a world title.”
Santa
Cruz has really hit his stride as a prizefighter and fans are now starting to
take notice.
“That
one fight we did in Mexico, when he
fought in Veracruz (the Jamoye stoppage), I mean, he really impressed everybody
down there, everybody with Televisa and some of the boxing experts in Mexico
and they said, ‘We've never seen anything like this kid and this kid is a
special fighter.’ He's got the classic style. He's very exciting, throws a
1,000 punches and so we kinda stumbled upon a little treasure here with him.
It's incredible but he's developing very nicely and we're going to get him one
more fight before the end of the year, this Saturday, and
keep developing him,” said Gomez, who has high hopes going forward. “I think
the next year, he can really come out and do something, make a name for
himself. There's going to be some openings there with [Nonito] Donaire leaving
the division. There might be a title there somewhere, so I think the step for
next year is targeting some of these guys in the top ten and move his way into
title contention.”
Santa
Cruz is poised to make that next step.
“Yeah,
hopefully, next year. That's been on my mind,” he said. “Everybody, my manager,
has been telling me that next year is my year that I try to become a champion.”
