By Eric Baldwin: IBF World lightweight champion Robert Easter Jr. is ready to impress the fans on Friday night by knocking out his tough challenger Luis Cruz from the Huntington Center in Easter’s hometown of Toledo, Ohio. Easter and Cruz will both be looking to KO each other on Friday night. It should be exciting for the fans.
Easter is a heavy favorite to win the fight, but anything possible in a fight involving Cruz. Easter Jr. is one of the hardest punchers in the lightweight division today. Other than his grueling fight against Richard Commey, Easter still hasn’t faced a great deal of top fighters in the 135lb division. However, Easter is highly skilled with a great deal of boxing ability and size for the division.
The 31-year-old Cruz punches with a lot of power, and he’s knocked out some very good fighters during his 10-year pro career. Cruz (22-4-1, 16 KOs) fought to a questionable 10 round draw in his last fight on April 19 against Ivan Redkach. That was a fight that could have easily been given to Cruz. Many of the boxing fans that saw that fight picked Cruz as the winner.
Easter (18-0, 14 KOs) will be showcasing his tremendous punching power and skills in the Cruz fight on Premier Boxing Champions on Bounce starting at 9 p.m. ET. This will be Easter’s first fight since beating Richard Commey by a 12 round split decision last year in September. That was a 12 round war that saw Easter having to get up off the canvas to come back and take the fight in the championship rounds.
Easter staggered Commey on a couple of occasions in the final four rounds, and had him seemingly out on his feet in round 12. The 5’11” Easter landed some monstrous punches to the head of Commey in the final round. It’s a credit to Commey that he was able to take the shots without going down for the count Easter won the fight by the scores 115-112, 114-113 for Easter, and 114-113 for Commey.
“I have a very tough fighter in front of me. Cruz is going to come to fight and put on a show, but I’m prepared to deliver a knockout,” said Easter. “I can’t wait to get into the ring for this fight. This is something I’ve been waiting on for years. I’m a world champion just like I knew I always would be.”
This is Easter’s first fight as the new IBF champion, and he wants to impress his fans that will be watching him. Former four time world champion Adrien Broner will be attending the fight. Broner is a friend of Easter’s.