Fans' Feedback Helped Santa Cruz Overcome Frampton Defeat

By Keith Idec

Leo Santa Cruz took his first professional defeat hard.

The proud Mexican-American boxer felt as though he let down his fans and family by losing a majority decision to Carl Frampton on July 30 in Brooklyn, New York. The Southern California fighter didn’t even want to see people in the immediate aftermath of the fight that cost him the WBA world featherweight title.

Frampton won by sizeable margins on two of the three scorecards (117-111, 116-112, 114-114), but Santa Cruz didn’t surrender his WBA super world featherweight championship without putting up quite a fight. The more positive feedback he received regarding his performance, the better Santa Cruz felt about how he fought in an action-packed battle that drew “Fight of the Year” consideration from numerous media outlets.

“In the beginning it’s tough because it’s the first loss of your career,” Santa Cruz told BoxingScene.com. “And then you feel you disappointed a lot of people and everything. But then after I heard that people were saying good stuff, that they were leaving great comments that I fought a great fight, to not be disappointed, that the fight was pretty close, that it could’ve gone either way, or a lot of people were telling me that they gave it to me by one or two points. But, you know, it made me feel a lot better, comfortable, and just happy.”

The 28-year-old Santa Cruz (32-1-1, 18 KOs) is even happier he secured a rematch against Northern Ireland’s Frampton (23-0, 14 KOs). Santa Cruz is training in La Puente, California, for their January 28 fight at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas (Showtime).

“I’m very excited, very happy that we got the rematch right after the first fight,” Santa Cruz said. “After I got my first loss, right after I went to the locker room and said, ‘I want the rematch.’ Since that day, the only thing I thought of was to get the rematch against him. I’m really motivated to go out there this time and get the win.”

Unofficial CompuBox statistics credited Santa Cruz with landing 255-of-1,002 punches in their 12-round fight, 13 more than Frampton (242-of-668). CompuBox counted more power punches for Frampton (206-of-463 to 191-of-551) and more jabs for Santa Cruz (64-of-451 to 36-of-205).

“It was a very close fight,” Santa Cruz said. “Maybe I did win by one point or two points, but it could’ve gone either way. It was really close. Once you’re up there, all you’re thinking of is you’re throwing punches and you’re doing good. So I didn’t really focus on how many rounds I was winning or how many I was losing. I just thought that it was a pretty close fight.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.