By Chris Williams: Popular Lightweight contender Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz will fight Giovanni Cabrera in the chief support bout on the July 29th undercard of Errol Spence Jr vs. Terence Crawford on Showtime PPV. The pay-per-view portion of the card begins at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Cruz-Cabrera will be a WBA/WBC 135-lb title eliminator, with the winner to be mandatory to undisputed four-belt lightweight champion Devin Haney.
With Showtime PPV cost for the card selling for $84.99, it would be nice if the organizers added some additional fights involving Frank Martin and some other excellent fighters to lure the fence-sitter into wanting to purchase the card.
The undercard could use a couple of good fights to tempt the fans right now. While the main event is a good one, Crawford has never fought anyone, and the times he’s faced guys with power, he’s gotten on his bike and made it ugly.
Spence-Crawford undercard
- Isaac Cruz vs. Giovanni Cabrera
- Jesus Ramos vs. Sergio Garcia
- Gurgen Hovhannisyan vs. Viktor Faust
The other main fights on the card are junior middleweight slugger Jesus Ramos battling Sergio Garcia in a WBC eliminator and heavyweight Gurgen Hovhannisyan taking on Viktor Faust in a 10-round bout.
Jesus Ramos (20-0, 16 KOs) is coming off a seventh round knockout win over previously unbeaten Joseph Spencer last March.
Ramos beat the hard-hitting Brian Mendoza by a competitive ten round unanimous decision in 2021. Mendoza defeated Sebastian ‘Towering Inferno’ Fundora by a seventh round knockout last April.
Ramos is a good fighter, but it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to deal with top 154-pounders Jermell Charlo or Tim Tszyu in the future. Those guys are on a different level.
Of the three undercard fights announced today for the Spence-Crawford card, ‘Pitbull’ Cruz vs. Cabrera is the best.
However, boxing fans on social media say they would have preferred to see Pitbull Cruz (24-2-1, 17 KOs) take on #1 WBC Shakur Stevenson, but that would never happen.
Cruz gained a measure of fame in losing a competitive 12 round decision to WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis in 2021. In his two fights since that loss, ‘Pitbull’ Cruz has beaten 40-year-old Yurorkis Gamboa and Eduardo Ramirez by knockout.
Where Cruz’s popularity plummeted with hardcore boxing fans is when he failed to take Shakur Stevenson up on his offer to fight him.
Besides Cruz likely rejecting the fight due to the high risk, Stevenson is with Top Rank, so that effectively eliminates the chance of the fight happening.
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