I don’t know how the Stephen A. Smiths of the world do it – how they loudly proclaim something in sports to be true, have it turn out not to be true and just move on to the next subject to scream about as if their god-awful take never happened.
It’s probably one of those things that gets easier the more you do it. It’s a process, and one that is somewhat like the five stages of grief in reverse. First you demonstrate that you stink at bloviating. With time, you accept that you stink at bloviating. Then later you deny that you stink at bloviating. And ultimately you’re able to just ignore everything that happens post-bloviation and you begin to bloviate consequence-free (and cash your checks).
Well, either I’m not cut out for the hot-take game or I’m not yet experienced enough at the hot-take game, because I feel a compulsion to immediately own my lousy take.
Last week, I wrote that Raymond Muratalla had no chance of beating Andy Cruz.
Did I mean it literally? Of course not. I did note that “any man who balls up his fists and throws punches has a chance at putting the other in standby mode.” I was exaggerating my opinion for effect. I was trying to write an interesting column, not a milquetoast one, and “I favor the -275 betting favorite Cruz to win” wouldn’t have been particularly compelling.
So after studying both men’s past fights and concluding that Cruz appeared to be a level above Muratalla, I wrote up the most extreme version of my opinion.
And holy hell was my opinion – even in its non-extreme form – wrong.
I may have overestimated Cruz slightly, but more to the point, I undoubtedly underestimated Muratalla.
He and trainer Robert Garcia crafted what turned out to be a perfect game plan – aggressive without getting wild, leading rather than counterpunching, cutting off the ring, punching in combination, applying a steady pressure that didn’t quite suffocate Cruz but never allowed him a relaxed breath – and the undefeated California beltholder clearly won the last two rounds to secure a close (ignoring Tim Cheatham’s ludicrous 118-110 scorecard), deserved decision.
Muratalla and Garcia found ways to offset all the edges I thought I saw on the Cruz side.
Fellow boxing writer Adam Abramowitz took issue with my over-the-top column angle, saying in social media conversation the day before the fight that a Muratalla victory wouldn’t surprise him much, and that he believed in a close fight Garcia could make a real difference.
He was right to give Muratalla a decent shot at the upset, and he was dead-on about Garcia. I was wrong not to give Muratalla much of a chance (or zero chance, if you took my column literally, which is your right), and I undersold the impact of Garcia.
At one point in my pre-fight column, I compared Muratalla to Matt Hasselbeck (serviceable professional quarterback) and Cruz to Patrick Mahomes (freak athlete who does things rarely seen before).
I woke up Sunday morning to a notification of a quote-tweet from the @GarciaBoxing account declaring that the correct comp for Muratalla and Garcia would have been Tom Brady and Belichick, although when I tried to find the tweet, it was gone – Garcia must have decided it would be a better look to celebrate silently than to spike the ball in my face.
But he was and is well within his rights to spike it.
His guy won and performed brilliantly, and my column, to quote a BoxingScene comment posted moments after the fight ended, “aged like milk” (a phrase I haven’t seen since Kieran Mulvaney and I appeared on a video edition of Morning Kombat in 2023 and host Brian Campbell showed a picture of young Kieran, resulting in the unflattering beverage comparison regarding how the years had treated my podcast partner).
I suppose if I were an experienced, thick-skinned take-oil salesman, I would be out here minimizing what I got wrong and instead pointing out that I correctly labeled Muratalla vs. Cruz “a first-rate fight, a ‘toughest test to date’ in both directions, that is worth watching live on Saturday.”
But in reality, to say I went 1-for-2 would be a generous interpretation.
So I will simply turn the page, and look to the future – for Muratalla, who really should be the focus here.
Now that he has defeated Cruz and established himself as a player at the very top of the lightweight division, it’s time to think about his follow-up act. Here are five opponents I’d love to see him in with next:
The Teofimo Lopez-Shakur Stevenson winner
This is called “giving your post-fight column legs by spinning it forward to the next weekend’s major fight as well.”
Muratalla would likely have to go up one division (probably not an issue given his physical frame), and would again be a substantial underdog (whoever wins Lopez-Stevenson could crack the pound-for-pound top five). But now that he’s beaten Cruz, it’s not unreasonable and it’s perfectly marketable.
A Stevenson fight would be particularly interesting because Shakur could be positioned as a rich man’s Cruz. He is a master boxer with an Olympic pedigree. And the likely path to someone handing him his first loss is to apply smart pressure. Sound like anyone we know?
For Muratalla, either Stevenson or Lopez would be a leap-in-class fight, but well worth taking that leap for a handsome paycheck and a shot at the lineal 140lbs championship.
Keyshawn Davis
Prior to last Saturday, there was a soft build in progress toward a Cruz-Davis fight – the professional follow-up to an amateur rivalry.
With Cruz suffering a setback, Muratalla stepping in makes lots of sense. Former lightweight titleholder Davis went 0-4 against Cruz in the amateurs, including the Cuban preventing him from winning an Olympic gold medal. Defeating the man who bested Cruz would make a satisfying statement.
Muratalla-Davis is also a theoretically easy fight to make, with both lightweights promoted by Top Rank.
From a business perspective, there may be wisdom in letting this one “marinate,” to use the culinary word of choice in matchmaking. That said, if you make the fight immediately, you avoid the risk of one of them getting bumped off and the matchup aging like milk.
Gervonta “Tank” Davis
There is no shortage of Davises to choose from – although a Tank fight is certainly complicated by him being wanted by the authorities and seemingly disinterested in fighting (at least against fellow males who box professionally).
So, yes, there are plenty of “ifs” here. But if Gervonta wants to box, and if Gervonta is permitted to box, Davis-Muratalla can go straight to pay-per-view and probably represents Muratalla’s biggest potential purse – especially if it turns out a fully black-hat-wearing Davis is a bigger attraction than ever with most of the boxing audience hungering to watch him lose.
Also, boxer-pressure-fighter vs. boxer-puncher is usually a winning formula for fans.
This is another case of a fight that would have been perceived as a mismatch a week ago but now looks competitive – provided the promotional A-side wants to be and is legally allowed to be a boxer.
Lamont Roach
A more realistic alternative to Tank (and a much less lucrative one, unfortunately), Muratalla vs. Roach is a first-rate matchup of guys who came up the hard way, proving themselves fight in and fight out with relatively modest fanfare.
In his last two fights, Roach settled for a draw against Tank Davis that could easily have been either a DQ win or a decision win, then got stuck with another draw against Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz in another fight Roach appeared to edge.
If anyone in the division deserves a meaningful opportunity right now, it’s Roach.
And when the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board ratings get updated following Lopez-Stevenson, if Shakur announces an intention to stay at 140lbs and is removed from the lightweight ranks, Roach vs. Muratalla could end up as No. 1 vs. No. 2 in a division with a championship vacancy – making this a fight to determine the next lineal king.
William Zepeda
There’s always something to be said for a fight that you just know in your bones is sure to be violent and fun.
If Muratalla is the current shining lightweight example of a smart pressure fighter, then Zepeda is his counterpart without any intellect-based adjective. Zepeda delivers pure swarming pressure. Muratalla may outbox him and/or outfight him, but he won’t outwork him and he won’t make Zepeda back up.
Zepeda is no soft touch – far from it – but after Muratalla upset the odds with Cruz, this is that friendlier follow-up matchup that boxers often receive after scoring a major win, one in which he gets to play the role of betting favorite.
It’s not easy. But it’s easier. And if it gets signed, as it draws closer, who knows – I may even do something stupid like guarantee a Muratalla win.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
