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Leo Santa Cruz won a world title in a fourth weight class tonight, outpointing a game but a bit outclassed Miguel Flores over 12 rounds to take the vacant WBA “super world” super featherweight title.
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Santa Cruz (37-1-1, 19 KO) won on scores of 115-112, 117-110, and 117-110, which were closer than many of the scores media were passing around online, including ours, which was a full shutout, 120-107 for Santa Cruz.
The 31-year-old Santa Cruz has now won world titles at 118, 122, 126, and 130, which probably all but stamps his ticket to the Hall of Fame, which might seem odd but if the standards don’t change, we’re going to see a lot of that in the coming years.
Anyway, Flores (24-3, 12 KO) gave a legitimate effort here, and actually outworked the always-active Santa Cruz overall, but Leo was the more accurate of the two and his punches seemed to have more effect, even if his power has clearly and logically diminished during his climb up the weight ladder.
Santa Cruz for once actually called out a couple of big names in his post-fight interview, not going with the tried and true “I’ll fight who my team tells me to fight” line.
“In 2020, I want a big fight,” he said. “I want Gary Russell, I want Gervonta Davis.”
Santa Cruz said he’s going to stay at 130 for now, but that he’d be willing to go up to 135 to chance Davis, who moves up to lightweight on Dec. 28. Russell is currently campaigning at 126, but has expressed a willingness to fight at 130 for a big fight.
The 27-year-old Flores certainly did fine by himself tonight, probably fighting better than most expected no matter how you scored the fight. He definitely lost, but he came to win and worked as hard as he could in there.