Leo Santa Cruz

It's great when you see really promising boxing prospects taking their first steps up in the world. This coming Friday night on TeleFutura we get to see one of the most promising young Mexican fighters fight in the biggest test of his career. 22 year old Leo Santa Cruz, 15-0-1 (7), of Lincoln Heights, California (though born in Huetamo, Michoacán de Ocampo, Mexico) faces the experienced Jose Lopez, 39-9-2 (32) of Puerto Rico. Lopez, although now 39, was recently the WBO Super Flyweight champion and has never been stopped in a career that dates back to 1991. Included the names that Lopez has fought are the likes of Fernando Montiel, Juan Alberto Rosas, Marvin Sonsona, Isidro Garcia and Carlos Gabriel Salazar.

For Cruz the fight with Lopez will be a major test of his ability, chin and mental toughness though maybe it's the sort of test a fighter like Cruz will need. So far in a career dating back to October 2006 he has had things relatively his own way, only a draw with Rodrigo Hernandez in Cruz's second fight marks an otherwise perfect record. Up to now the best win on Santa Cruz's 16 fight record is a 5^th round KO over tough and skilled Belgian Stephane Jamoye (20-3) back in March of this year. Other than the win over Jamoye however Cruz lacks any sort of known quality on his record and perhaps needs to beat Lopez to prove he is a contender rather than a pretender.

Although Cruz is not a noted puncher, in fact he only scored 5 KO's in his first 11 bouts, he is a man who seems to be able to hurt other fights and his growing confidence seems to be a telling factor as he has stopped his last 5 fights early, including stopping the previously unstopped Jamoye. A stoppage against Lopez, whilst unlikely, would really prove that Cruz is a fighter to mark down as a future world level competitor. Although he's got a growing reputation for landing painful blows he's a solid enough boxer from a technical stand point to go places and with Golden Boy Promotions behind him there seems to be no reason for him not to be a major contender over the next decade.

Oscar Cortes

Teenage stars seem to be the theme of this blog this week, so lets add one more before the week's out. This time Mexican 17 year old Oscar “Raton” Cortes who fights later today (Friday) in what will be his 15^th fight as a professional in a career that is still in it's infancy.

Oscar Cortes (full name Oscar Oswaldo Cortés Navarro) was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico on June 25^th 1993 and as a young teenage amateur he would win a bronze medal in the National Olympics in 2007. In 2009, soon after his 16^th birthday, he made his professional debut and stopped Geovani Vargas in 2 rounds on a card promoted by HG Boxing. It'd been a good start to his career though it was how he progressed that was going to be the interesting part.

Things weren't immediate for Cortes who had to wait 5 months for his second professional bout though when he returned to the ring he stopped Luis Angel Hernandez in 3 rounds and started to really mature in the ring. Over the proceeding 9 months following the win over Hernandez Cortes would fight 10 times scoring wins in each of those fights, 5 by KO. By the end of 2010 Cortes had climbed to 11-0 (6) and had run up over 40 rounds as a professional. Interestingly by the end of the year he had also inked a deal with Canelo Promotions, the promotional vehicle of the ultra-popular Saul “Canelo” Alvarez who were starting to promote him and put him on their shows.

To start 2011 Cortes would rematch Alejandro Gonzalez (who he beat by decision in December 2010) and manage to score a stoppage in the rematch to improve his record to 12-0 (7) and add to his growing reputation. He's added 2 more wins since that bout to stand at his current record of 14-0 (8) and he's been pencilled in for 2 upcoming dates. The first bout is tonight when he faces his toughest test so far in Armando Mariscal (5-4-2, 2). If he can, as is expected, beat Mariscal he is expected to be on the undercard of Saul Alvarez's title defence against Ryan Rhodes in a scheduled 8 rounder. That card will be by far the biggest that Cortes will have been on and he shares the undercard with Horacio Garcia and Marco Antonio Periban amongst others.

If Cortes can follow the pathway of a fighter like Alvarez he'll be onto very big things, though we've got to hope that he starts to face tougher tests than he has been doing so far. At the moment he has been facing soft touches that have been to help pad his record and get him used to the sport, after 14 fights and 57 professional rounds it's time he starts to face some opponents who will teach him something new before he starts to form bad habits. Currently ranked at #236 with Boxrec at Super Featherweight he seems like he'll be a fully fledged Lightweight by the time he really starts to face solid competition, though should be one to watch for the future.