By Dan Ambrose: WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. (35-1-1, 17 KOs) has been ordered by the World Boxing Council to defend against WBA Super World featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (35-1-1, 17 KOs) in a fight that the sanctioning body has absolutely no way for enforcing given that the two fighters are fighting for two different sanctioning bodies.
The WBC is a sanctioning body that is known for making bizarre moves from time to time, and ordering Russell Jr. to defend his WBC title against WBA champion is one of the weirder moves. It reminds one of the time the WBC made GGG Canelo’s mandatory challenger in 2016 after the Kazakhstan fighter destroyed then WBC mandatory challenger Marco Antonio Rubio by a 2nd round knockout. At the time, Golovkin was the WBA middleweight champion. Canelo wanted no part of the red hot Golovkin, so he quickly vacated his WBC title to avoid him. The WBC is now trying the same tactic with Russell Jr. by ordering him to face Santa Cruz.
It’s unclear if the WBC is making this move to anger Russell Jr. to make him vacate or if they truly want him to face Santa Cruz. In theory, if Russell Jr. chooses to not take the fight with Santa Cruz, then the World Boxing Council will likely install Santa Cruz as their new WBC featherweight champion. In other words, if Santa Cruz agrees to fight Russell Jr. and he fails to accept the fight, then the WBC will like strip him of his title and give it to Santa Cruz. The WBC will then have a popular champion, who fights at least twice a year in Santa Cruz. Russell Jr. mostly fights just once a year, and he’s not very popular.
Russell Jr. and Santa Cruz both want to face each other, according to Dan Rafael. If that’s the case, then Russell Jr. vs. Santa Cruz should be a fun fight to watch. It’s going to be a tough one for Santa Cruz to win because Russell Jr. has the faster hands, and he hits with a lot of punching power. Santa Cruz will need to come p with the perfect game plan for him to have a chance of winning this fight.
Santa Cruz has won his last three fights since losing a controversial 12 round majority decision to Carl Frampton in 2016. Santa Cruz avenged the loss to Frampton in 2017 in beating him by a 12 round majority decision. Santa Cruz followed that fight up with wins over Chris Avalos and Abner Mares. Santa Cruz’s win over Mares was his second. He beat him in 2015 as well.
Russell Jr. has won his last five fights since losing to Vasyl Lomachenko by a 12 round unanimous decision in 2014. Russell Jr. defeated the highly rated previously unbeaten Joseph Diaz Jr. by a 12 round unanimous decision in his last fight in June. Before that, Russell Jr. defeated Oscar Escandon, Patrick Hyland, Jhonny Gonzalez and Christopher Martin. The only criticism you can give Russell Jr. is that he’s not active enough with his career in defending his WBC title. If Russell Jr. loses to Santa Cruz, the WBC will have a new champion that is a lot more active. It’s a good deal for the WBC if Santa Cruz gets their featherweight belt.