By Jake Donovan

There was a point in his career where fans wouldn’t have been as forgiving had Leo Santa Cruz opted to skip on a big opportunity. This time around, even the worst critic would’ve sympathized with his plight.

For months, Santa Cruz has been forced to fight the good fight in the ring and in the gym while his father and head trainer Jose Santa Cruz has endured a lengthy and grueling battle with bone cancer. When it came time to put together the clash of undefeated titlists with Carl Frampton – who is moving up from super bantamweight where he held two major belts – the concern was whether or not the windmill-style boxer from California by way of Mexico was mentally in a place to proceed.

Strangely, the only one who wouldn’t have forgiven the unbeaten three-division titlist had he sat out this weekend’s showdown with Frampton was the man for whom he considered sitting on the sideline for a few more months.

“Me and my brother reached out about maybe canceling the fight,” Santa Cruz (32-0-1, 18KOs) recently admitted of the dilemma he’d faced heading into this weekend’s main event at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, with Showtime to televise. “We didn't know how my dad was going to be, if he would be in my corner or he was going to be able to beat cancer. We didn't know what was going to go on and if it was going to get worse. So yes, we thought about it.

“But then, you know, when we went to talk to my dad and told him about it he told us that no, that this is a job that even if he can't be there then we still have to go out there and do what we do. I knew he was going to be happier if I went out there and fought if I fought without him in my corner than if I sat out and didn’t fight at all.”

Santa Cruz had already spent seven months between fights by the time he stepped into the ring to face former super bantamweight titlist Kiko Martinez earlier this year. The bout was viewed going in as a potentially lopsided affair, but an understandable matchup given he had just faced and defeated former three-division champ Abner Mares last August.

The career-best win to that point – coupled with the layoff – offered some leeway in his accepting a fight that wasn’t necessarily competitive on paper, but figured to be fun for however long it lasted. That’s precisely how their Showtime-televised bout played out this past February, with Santa Cruz nearly scoring a knockout in the opening round, but enduring a hailstorm of punches in return before finally dispatching the feisty Spaniard in five rounds.

Those who were opposed to the matchup wondered aloud why Santa Cruz was facing Martinez rather than either of the reigning titlists who’d already beaten him – Frampton or Scott Quigg.

Of course, the simple answer to the inquiry was that the aforementioned reigning super bantamweight titlists were already signed long ago to a unification bout. The event was due to take place on the same February date as Santa Cruz-Martinez, in fact, on the other side of the Atlantic in front of a sold-out crowd at O2 Arena in London, England.

Both shows were packaged together by Showtime as a split-site day/night doubleheader, clearly with the intention of matching together the winners. It was a hard choice for the Frampton-Quigg winner to have to make, given that two mandatory challenges awaited at 122 lbs. for whomever emerged victorious.

For Santa Cruz, it was an easy one to make, especially now that he’s in a better position to demand big fights. It wasn’t always the case, as for far too long he told by his team – which includes high-powered adviser Al Haymon – the opponents he would have to face instead rather than his own input carry much weight in such talks. 

“I listened to the fans and the criticism,” Santa Cruz admitted of the backlash that followed his career prior to his “Battle of L.A.” clash with Mares last year. “I wished I could choose and say I'm going to fight this fighter, and just go on ahead and fight him. But I had to leave it to my team. They're here to protect me. They know what's right.

“So that's why I listen to them and they know what's best. But sooner or later, I'm going to fight the fight that the fans want.”

It happened with Mares, the bout offering a reminder of why the boxing world fell in love with Santa Cruz all those years ago. He was a fresh face on the scene when showcased on a Showtime quadrupleheader versus Vusi Malinga in June ’12, a young boxer who throws A LOT of punches every round of every fight.

He was also a boxer who’d remained active even upon winning his title, the bout one of five he’d have in a 2012 campaign that ended with his outpointing previously unbeaten Alberto Guevara. The latter affair took place in Dec. ’12 live on CBS in a Saturday-matinee special, the first piece of live boxing on free network TV in more than seven years.

From there, the bloom quickly fell off the rose as he was matched with several retreads and no-hopers, somehow being steered of tough matches at a time when super bantamweight and featherweight were overflowing with talent.

In his defense, his moving up from a reign at bantamweight to challenge then-122 lb. titlist Victor Terrazas in Aug. ‘13 was taken with the intention of a big fight happening next. Also on the show was Mares, at the time an undefeated featherweight titlist and reigns in three weight divisions overall.

Those plans were put on ice, however, when Mares landed on the wrong end of the 2013 Upset of the Year in getting knocked out in one round by Jhonny Gonzalez, a (believed to be) faded former two-division champ who resurrected his career in an instant.

Instead, came a string of five consecutive fights against opposition that wasn’t openly embraced by the viewing public. His first title defense versus Cesar Seda was closer than the final scores suggested, perhaps explaining in part why his team slowed things down in subsequent in-ring battles with faded Cristian Mijares and a trio of miserable mismatches in Manuel Roman, Jesus Ruiz and Jose Cayetano before finally landing the long-awaited in-ring battle with Mares.

The bout headlined the third installment of Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on ESPN, serving as the network’s highest-rated bout since the series’ inception last June. Interestingly – and in a strange parallel to Santa Cruz’ career – it also resulted in a dramatic decline in quality main events from that point forward.

Santa Cruz hasn’t appeared in a specific PBC-branded event since then. His fights with Martinez and now Frampton are Showtime affairs, although PBC has lent its name to such editions since the calendar turned from 2015 to 2016.

Whatever the case, the always humble boxer – who turns 28 in August – just goes in the ring and does his job. On Saturday, he will do so while embracing the tail end of the two toughest matchups of his career in a three-fight stretch. It’s happening while he attempts to mentally catalog his father’s ongoing battle with cancer – and at the same time happening because of that very battle.

“My dad would get strong and he said oh, no, no, no,” Santa Cruz said of his father’s refusal to allow his son to put his career on hold. “This cancer is not going to beat me. I'm going to fight it. I'm going to fight it. I'm going to beat it and you're going to go out there and do the same thing.”

He now gets to do it against an opponent who’s yet to taste defeat and – given the Belfast, N. Ireland boxer’s affinity to Irish boxing fans around the world – likely walking into a hostile crowd on Saturday.

As he enters the ring with the satisfaction of fighting for his ailing – yet improving – father, he knows what can come of leaving the ring with the satisfaction of handing Frampton his first career defeat.

“It’s more difficult because he doesn’t know how to lose,” Santa Cruz notes of facing an unbeaten fighter. “He hasn't tasted defeat. I know he's going to come with everything because he's not going to want to let that all go.

“At the same time it’s more motivation for me. He hasn’t lost, I never lost. I want to be the first fighter to beat him. That way I’ll be considered one of the best in the sport.”

Twitter: @JakeNDaBox_v2