By Scott Gilfoid: WBA Super World featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (31-0-1, 17 KOs) is another fighter that will be closely watching this Saturday’s unification fight between IBF super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg (31-0-2, 23 KOs) and IBF 122lb champion Carl Frampton (21-0, 14 KOs) in hopes of getting a fight against the winner of that contest.
Santa Cruz has been interested in fighting Frampton and Quigg for some time, but he’s just not had the luck of getting either of them in the ring. Now, however, it could be a possibility, because it doesn’t look like the winner of the Frampton-Quigg fight will be bothering to face Guillermo Rigondeaux, who also is interested in facing the winner.
Santa Cruz, 27, has a title defense this Saturday on February 27 against former IBF 122lb world champion Kiko Martinez (35-6, 26 KOs) on Showtime Championship Boxing at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California.
“On call with @leosantacruz2 about his fight Sat vs Kiko Martinez. Said he’ll be paying attention to Frampton-Quigg and wants the winner,” said Dan Rafael on his Twitter.
I think Santa Cruz would be a bad match-up for the likes of Frampton and Quigg, because he can do everything they can do but better. Santa Cruz can also box from the outside, as we saw from him in his last fight against former three division world champion Abner Mares last August.
Santa Cruz used both slugging and boxing in that fight to perfection, and he was able to take control of the fight early and win a fairly easy 12 round majority decision. The fight was only close in the first six rounds. In the second half of the fight, Santa Cruz pulled away and won in style with his superior skills.
Right now, it’s hard to say what Quigg and Frampton will do after their fight on Saturday. Quigg’s promoter Eddie Hearn has already said that he’s game for putting on a rematch against Frampton if they win. Hearn also said he might be interested in matching Quigg against WBO champion Nonito Donaire or former world champion Guillermo Rigondeaux.
However, Hearn’s eyes lit up when he spoke of putting together a rematch between Quigg and Frampton, and it seems pretty obvious that he would prefer to make that fight happen. I just don’t know whether the British boxing public would be interested in seeing rematches instead of seeing Quigg and Frampton move on to try and prove themselves against real talents like Rigondeaux and Santa Cruz.
I think Santa Cruz is pretty much in the same boat as Rigondeaux is in terms of him being just too good and too dangerous for Frampton and Quigg to try and fight them. Santa Cruz has too many facets to his game for him to get a fight against Quigg or Frampton, and I see him being totally ignored if he tries to push for a fight against the winner of that fight. It doesn’t hurt to try though, but I don’t see it happening. All you need to do is look at the resumes of Frampton and Quigg to realize that they’re mostly matched against soft opposition in safe record-padding fights instead of being put in dangerous fights where they could lose.
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