Leo Santa Cruz On Gary Russell Fight: It's Still Very Possible; Still A Great Fighter
BY
KEITH IDEC
Published Mon Mar 07, 2022, 09:23 AM EST
Leo Santa Cruz would welcome a fight with the newly crowned champion who upset Gary Russell Jr. next.
If Russell gets the opportunity to fight Mark Magsayo again, though, the four-division champion considers a subsequent bout with Russell viable if Russell were to win back his title. Russell didn’t have a rematch clause in his contract for the Magsayo bout because the WBC doesn’t allow such items in deals for mandated title fights.
That’s unfortunate for Russell, whom Santa Cruz acknowledged might not have lost to Magsayo if he hadn’t suffered a shoulder injury during the fourth round that hindered him in the final eight-plus rounds January 22 at Borgata Event Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Regardless, the 33-year-old Santa Cruz remains interested in the featherweight fight that has long interested him, yet never materialized.
“I think it’s still very possible,” Santa Cruz told BoxingScene.com regarding facing Russell. “Gary Russell’s still a great fighter. He’s very dangerous out there and I think if he comes back a hundred percent, I think he could get his belt back. And then maybe we can fight, yeah.”
Russell (31-2, 18 KOs), a southpaw from Capitol Heights, Maryland, is expected to have surgery to repair a torn tendon in his right shoulder. He put off surgery before he made a mandatory defense of his WBC belt against the Philippines’ Magsayo (24-0, 16 KOs) last month, but time off and physical therapy seemingly won’t be enough to help him fully recover from the injury that inhibited him for two-thirds of that 126-pound title fight.
Santa Cruz (38-2-1, 19 KOs) didn’t see the entire Russell-Magsayo match, but Russell’s 12-round, majority-decision defeat certainly wasn’t the result that the Rosemead, California, native wanted.
“I was a little bit disappointed,” Santa Cruz said. “I wanted Gary Russell to win. I’ve been saying I want that rematch because he beat me in the amateurs. And I said, ‘In the pros, we can fight again.’ I know people are saying, ‘Oh, Leo doesn’t wanna fight him.’ But I do wanna fight him. I’ve always wanted to fight him. It’s just that the promoters weren’t able to make that fight. I don’t know the reason, but I know I was always pushing for that fight. I was always telling them, ‘Hey, give me the Gary Russell fight.’ And then they said they were gonna try to work it out, but they never came back.”
Russell hadn’t fought in nearly two years by the time he headlined a “Showtime Championship Boxing” tripleheader against Magsayo. Santa Cruz ended his own 15-month layoff last month, when he out-pointed Phoenix’s Keenan Carbajal (23-3-1, 15 KOs) in a 10-round, 130-pound fight on the Keith Thurman-Mario Barrios undercard at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s Michelob ULTRA Arena.
“The fight was really good,” Santa Cruz recalled, “but if Gary Russell would’ve been a hundred percent, and his hand wouldn’t have gotten hurt, I think he would’ve taken the fight. You know, he’s a really great fighter. He has really good speed and everything, and, you know, I think, like I said, he would’ve won if he would’ve been a hundred percent.”
You can be good with the conversation.. dont make a difference to me. Ortiz beating Berto is no bigger a win than ggg beating Jacobs...Jacobs beating Dervenchenko.. Kovalev beating Eleider Alvarez and Anthony Yarde back2back
but since you brought up Baby Bull.. Nothing greater or more spectacular about that win over the above matches I mentioned either..
but we supposed to take you serious. You just coming off like another delusional Floyd D-rider
These boxrec nyggas always expose themselves.
and it was at a different weight division than Hatton...
so I can't help but call bullshyt when someone push a false narritive that all Floyds fights were "bigger"
