By Dan Ambrose: WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (27-0-1, 15 KOs) will be defending his title this Saturday night against a fringe contender named Manuel Roman (17-2-2, 6 KOs) on the Floyd Mayeather Jr vs. Marcos Maidana 2 fight card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Santa Cruz-Roman fight is the chief support for the Mayweather-Maidana 2 fight, but unfortunately it’s not a great fight and it’s kind of surprising that the match-up hasn’t received much attention for the mismatch that it is on paper. We’re basically talking about Danny Garcia vs. Rod Salka 2 in the Santa Cruz v. Roman fight, because this is the same kind of situation.
Like Salka, Roman fights in a division below Santa Cruz at bantamweight instead of super bantamweight. The main difference between Salka and Roman is that Roman is ranked #13 by the WBC, so he’s just barely ranked in the top. He’s a fringe a contender.
In Roman’s last 7 fights, he’s lost 2 of them with 2 draws and three wins. In other words, Roman’s record in his last 7 fights is 3-2-2. That’s obviously terrible for someone who is fighting for a world title on an important fight card like the Mayweather-Maidana 2 card.
Santa Cruz doesn’t make his fights.
Al Haymon is adviser is the one that picks out his opponents, and it’s pretty disappointing that he’s gone down an entire division and then picked from the bottom of that division to find an opponent for Santa Cruz rather than someone from the super bantamweight division.
You can put up with a fringe contender from the same weight the champion is fighting at, but when they look for fringe level opponents from the division below the champion you really got to know that it’s as bad a fight as possible.
The World Boxing Council agreed to sanction the Santa Cruz-Roman fight, but you have to wonder why Showtime didn’t say anything. They had to have noticed that Roman is a bantamweight and a fringe level one at that. Did they check that Roman’s record in his last 7 fights is 3-2-2?
I think there needs to be a better vetting process for the fights that Showtime is agreeing to show on their network because Santa Cruz-Roman is not a good fight, and I see this one ending quickly just like the Danny Garcia vs. Rod Salka fight. If Showtime had said no to the Santa Cruz-Roman fight, we might have seen a better opponent selected for Santa Cruz to fight.
I know many of these fights are aimed at casual boxing fans rather than hardcore fans. Casual fans will likely have no clue or preference who Santa Cruz fights, as long as it’s someone that will make it entertaining by coming straight at him. But for hardcore boxing fans, they would to see more competitive fights than massacres like Garcia-Salka, and that’s why I think Showtime needs to say no to some of the mismatches that are presented to them.
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