By Elisinio Castillo
WBA featherweight world champion Jesus Cuellar (28-1, 21KOs) was awarded the Olimpia de Plata for the best national boxer 2015 at a party held by the Circle of Sports Journalists.
Cuellar closes out an excellent 2015, in which he was elevated to the position of full featherweight champion of the World Boxing Association.
The Olimpia is one of the top honors in Argentine sports and boxing is the discipline that has hit the most winners of the Olimpia de Oro.
He started off the year with a fight in June, when he knocked out former champion Vic Darcinyan in eight rounds from the StubHub Center in Carson, California. The next defense of the belt came on December 5th when he won a twelve round unanimous decision over Jonathan Oquendo at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Cuellar is the mandatory challenger to WBA 'super' champion Leo Santa Cruz, who captured that title earlier this year with a win over Abner Mares. Cuellar's team is petitioning the WBA to decrease the time period in which Santa Cruz would be forced to make a mandatory defense. The longer the situation plays out, the more unlikely the fight will actually happen. Cuellar is already considering a move in weight to the super featherweight division.