(Photo Credit: Stephanie Trapp/SHOWTIME) By Dan Ambrose: WBA featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (32-0-1, 18 KOs) made it exciting tonight in going toe-to-toe with #9 WBA challenger Kiko Martinez 36-7, 26 KOs) in stopping him in the 5th round on Saturday night in a fight televised by Showtime Championship Boxing at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California, USA. Santa Cruz put Martinez down two times in the 1st round, but was unable to get him out of there. Martinez never stopped coming forward in the subsequent rounds, and he was catching Santa Cruz with some really big shots. Those punches would have knocked out a lot of guys, but Santa Cruz was able to take them without any signs of ever being hurt.
Santa Cruz trapped the 29-year-old Martinez against the ropes in the 5th and then flurried on him until referee Raul Caiz Sr. stepped in and halted the contest at 2:09 of the round. To his credit, Martinez was still on his feet, but he wasn’t throwing anything back and was just covering up during the final seconds of the flurry.
That was a mistake. Martinez looked like he could continue fighting after it was stopped, but it was too late. He had blown his chance by not throwing shots.
Martinez was putting unyielding pressure on Santa Cruz in the first four rounds, and Santa Cruz looked worried. The pressure was something that he initially welcomed in the 1st round.
“He [Martinez] was like a bull coming forward really strong,” said Santa Cruz. “He has definitely been one of the strongest fighters I’ve been in the ring with yet. Towards the end, I said, ‘This is it, this is my opportunity to take him down. If I don’t finish him right here, it’s going to make it a really tough fight. ‘So I said I was going at it with all and thankfully it turned out the way that it did.”
Santa Cruz was fortunate that he was fighting a weathered fighter that had been taken out twice recently by Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg. If Santa Cruz had caught up to Martinez earlier in his career when he was still unbeaten and hadn’t learned to lose.
There are fighters that would have given Santa Cruz a lot of problems tonight in the featherweight division. Martinez is little more than an aging super bantamweight, whose careers is going downhill. There are guys that would give Santa Cruz problems in the featherweight division like Vasyl Lomachenko, Gary Russell Jr., Lee Selby, Jesus Andres Cuellar, and Oscar Valdez.
Santa Cruz says he wants to fight a rematch with Abner Mares or face Carl Frampton. Santa Cruz defeated Mares last year by a 12 round majority decision in August 2015. I’m not sure how much fan interest there would be for a retread opponent like Mares for Santa Cruz. It’s still too early for a rematch between them, as Mares still hasn’t fought since that loss. I think it would be a mistake for Santa Cruz to fight the same guy he just beat instead of looking in another direction towards new opponents.
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