Leo Santa Cruz Eyes Rigondeaux: I'm Not Afraid of Him!

By Rick Reeno

WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (27-0-1, 15KOs) has no fear of his division's boogeyman, WBA/WBO kingpin Guillermo Rigondeaux (14-0, 9KOs).

Santa Cruz must first defend his world title against big underdog Manuel Roman (17-2-3, 6KOs) on September 13th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The fight will be part of the Mayweather-Maidana Showtime Pay-Per-View undercard.

Rigondeaux, a two-time Olympic gold medal winner, recently became a partial free agent after his contract with Top Rank expired. He is still promoted by Caribe Promotions, who certainly won't stand in the way of a fight with Santa Cruz.

"That's what I'm trying to do. I want to show that I'm not scared of anybody and I want to be the first one to step up and challenge him, but it's not up to me it's up to whole team - if we fight him or not. If it was up to me I would fight him at any time. But it's not only up to me....it's up to my trainer, manager, my whole team. But I'm not scared of him and hopefully next year we can make that fight happen," Santa Cruz said.