Leo Santa Cruz can’t envision any amount of time away from the ring that would prevent him from returning to 130 pounds.
It also remains the sticking point for the fight he hopes to still be next in store.
“I’m not that heavy right now. I’m like 140, 145 now and I am fighting at 130, so I’m not that heavy,” Santa Cruz (37-1-1, 19KOs) revealed during a live chat on the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) Facebook page from his Southern California home on Wednesday. “The plan is to fight [unbeaten former 130-pound champ Gervonta] Tank Davis. We’re going to fight at 130.
“We’re not going to go up to 135 right now. We want to fight at 130. That’s the plan.”
Santa Cruz and Davis (23-0, 22KOs) were originally due to headline a Pay-Per-View event budgeted sometime between late spring and early summer prior to the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. The sport as a whole has since come to a halt, with an overwhelming uncertainty as to when action can resume and who will be the first ones back in the ring.
Regardless of when their fight is rescheduled to take place, Santa Cruz has every intention of entering the ring as the defending 130-pound titlist. That would require Baltimore’s Davis to drop back down from the lightweight division, where he last fought in a 12th round stoppage of Yuriorkis Gamboa last December.
There has never been any indication of it contractually being an issue, although Davis has struggled at the scales in recent bouts. The unbeaten 25-year old southpaw was forced to vacate his first 130-pound title reign after missing weight for an August 2017 knockout win over Francisco Fonseca, and on three other occasions within his last six bouts has required more than one attempt to make the contracted limit including his aforementioned win over Gamboa.
Nevertheless, it’s a point on which Santa Cruz refuses to budge, having himself just moved up in weight. The former 118-, 122- and 126-pound champ collected Davis’ old title at junior lightweight in his most recent start, a 12-round win over Miguel Flores in his 130-pound debut last November. The four-division titlist plans to stay at the weight, without any designs of moving up in the near future—and most certainly not for his next fight.
“135 would be a tough fight because I would be giving away a weight advantage to Tank Davis,” admits Santa Cruz. “I think 130 is our weight and I think I have a great chance there at 130.
“I’ve been staying in the gym, we’ve been busy. Gervonta is the fight that I want. Hopefully it gets made.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox