In the summer of 2015, Leo Santa Cruz and Abner Mares engaged in a fun twelve round fight in which Santa Cruz clearly won despite a strange majority decision verdict. Now they are doing it again, but the question is why? Jermell Charlo defends his junior middleweight title against Austin Trout in the co-main event as well.
By the time Leo Santa Cruz (34-1-1, 19 KOs) met Abner Mares (31-2-1, 15 KOs) for his featherweight belt in 2015, he was already a two division titleholder. Yet, at the same time, he was taking a pretty big step up. Santa Cruz was pretty well protected in his reigns at 118 and 122. He had been in against such notably soft competition despite having a world title in two weight classes that I figured Mares would be a bridge too far, in fact. He wasn’t. Santa Cruz used his length to somewhat surprisingly outbox Mares. It was a fun and competitive fight, but the draw that came back on one of the cards was a real headscratcher. The two 117-111s were thankfully in line with what happened though.
Since then Santa Cruz has split a pair of very close, also fun fights with Carl Frampton sandwiched between two easier defenses. Mares has only fought twice, once in each 2016 and 2017. Again, it was a fun fight the first time around, but it was also far from one of those instant classic, rematch demanded type fights and it had a clear, uncontroversial winner. Nothing has happened in either of their careers to make unexpected demand for the rematch either. So why is it happening?
The always ridiculous WBA is the answer. The World Boxing Association likes to have three titleholders in every division as often as possible: an interim champion, a world champion, and a super world champion. It is downright farcical, but it is what they do. Leo Santa Cruz was elevated to super champion. When Abner Mares fought and narrowly outpointed Jesus Cuellar in 2016, it was for the now vacated world title. At the time, the WBA was pretending they were going to end this practice and was “unifying” all their belts. Therefore Santa Cruz v Mares II had to be ordered.
Hey, it could be worse. This is boxing remember. At least we are likely to get an entertaining scrap out of this one again. Plus, Mares was competitive the whole way even if he only banked a handful of rounds the first time. This isn’t Stevenson-Fonfara II level garbage is all I am saying. Plus, it has a compelling co-main event.
People could be sleeping on Jermell Charlo’s (30-0, 15 KOs) junior middleweight title defense against Austin Trout. Previously thought to be the inferior Charlo twin, Jermell has been on an outstanding run as of late. His come from behind, surprise knockout win over John Jackson netted him the title and he has defended it twice by brutal stoppage. Most recently he blew out thought to be can’t miss, blue chip prospect Erickson Lubin in one round.
Saturday night he has his biggest test to date in Austin Trout (31-4, 17 KOs). Trout has had a great and storied career featuring a win over a prime Miguel Cotto and a near upset of Canelo Alvarez in a major PPV headliner, but I want to focus on his more recent fights here. In May of 2016, Trout fought Jermell’s twin brother Jermall. Remember, Jermall has long been considered the more powerful and talented Charlo and Austin took him to the end in a very competitive loss. It isn’t difficult to look at Trout’s performance against Jermall Charlo and compare it to the big wins Jermell Charlo has pulled off. He did need to come from behind against John Jackson with a surprise KO. Hatley’s claim to fame was only a win over a faded Anthony Mundine while Erickson Lubin had never been tested at all until that point.
It would have been easy to make the argument that Austin Trout is a huge step up for Jermell Charlo if this fight had happened after his nip and tuck affair with Jermall, but it didn’t. Instead, Austin got a crack at Jarrett Hurd’s title. That fight was competitive for a while, but by its last third Hurd was putting a major beating on Trout and he was stopped for the first time in his career when he retired in his corner after ten. The Hurd fight was the kind of night that can take a lot out of an aging fighter. It is why I expect Jermell will be able to pull this one off. I just don’t think Austin can be the same fighter after taking that from Hurd.
The card begins at 10 PM Eastern on Showtime. This means it will conflict with the Terence Crawford show on ESPN+, unfortunately. I suspect this will be an entertaining show even if it is headlined by a fight no one asked to see.
