By Cliff Rold
It doesn’t take long perusing through social media to find them.
Sure, there is plenty of excitement. More excitement than not. Most fans get it. Sometimes fights don’t happen at the perfect time. Sometimes, during what seems like an inevitable build, someone gets knocked off. That doesn’t make this less than a stellar Featherweight match this Saturday on Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN.
Leo Santa Cruz (30-0-1, 17 KO) is still a titleholder at 122 lbs. He’s still undefeated. He’s still only 27. Abner Mares (29-1-1, 15 KO) is 29 and only recently went through as stiff a run of foes as anyone south of Carl Froch. It’s the fight that seemed to make the most sense once Mares walked away from a rematch with Johnny Gonzalez.
It took a little longer than was ideal but we’re still getting it while both are under 30 and under dramatic pretense. We’ve got a genuine crossroads fight. Santa Cruz has been fairly criticized for not upping his competition since he’s been at Jr. Featherweight. Mares has looked a little less than his best since the Gonzalez loss.
That makes this must win for both guys whether Santa Cruz ultimately returns down the scale to continue to defend his title or Mares gets himself backs towards the title picture at 126 lbs. Is Santa Cruz really a legitimate top guy? Is Mares a spent force, having taken too many tough fights from 2010-13 and now mentally weighed down by a knockout loss?
These are great questions.
But still we find them.
The Debbie Downers.
They are the voices fixated on what the fight isn’t. ‘It isn’t for a title’…’it isn’t when both guys were red hot’…’it isn’t what it might have been.’
They are the folks on social media who add these sentiments to anything positive about the fight.
It doesn’t make this fight not worth getting excited about.
It’s just annoying.
And lacking in perspective.
In some ways, it is reminiscent of the build to a fight in 2000 that ended up being one of the greatest fights of all time.
In 2000, Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera squared off for the first of what would turn out to be three fights. Going into the fight, that wasn’t the expectation. It was assumed by many that we would get an action packed fight but that it would end with Morales triumphant and moving on to bigger things.
Barrera was only 27 at the time but had already been a pro for over a decade. His two losses to Junior Jones in 1996 and 1997 had seen his public esteem fall. Barrera faced so-so opposition in rebuilding, even as he picked up a second title. In the meantime, Morales had felled Jones in four rounds and was entering off a thrilling win over Wayne McCullough.
It wasn’t a pay-per-view contest. It wasn’t even on HBO’s “World Championship Boxing” primary program. Morales-Barrera was a Boxing After Dark main event.
It turned out the assumptions about Barrera made an ass out of many and he still had plenty left in the tank. Like, another six years or so of plenty. Even with controversy about the decision that went to Morales, the fight ended up everyone’s choice for Fight of the Year and played a big part in launching Featherweight towards the monster money the division ended up generating as the decade wore on.
Mares-Santa Cruz probably isn’t going to be Morales-Barrera. That would be a lot to ask and those were two of the best fighters of theirs or any generation. Santa Cruz doesn’t have anywhere near Morales’ bond fides coming in. The questions about Mares are similar to those asked about Barrera but he’s a little older and has never been an electric a talent.
And no, there are no titles on the line whereas the 2000 epic was a unification showdown.
Thankfully, at least that fight didn’t have to deal with the democratization of negativity. There were surely plenty saying things like, “I’d rather see Morales fight Naseem Hamed because Barrera lost to Jones,” but they were muted. Message boards were around, but they were still growing and relatively self-contained.
Maybe this weekend’s fight will disappoint, leaving us to wonder what might have been with better timing. That happened earlier this year with Mayweather-Pacquiao. Unlike the long awaited superstar clash, this isn’t five years past due.
It’s more like a year of extra wait time.
That’s plenty of time to be a frustrating wait. It’s probably not enough time to spoil the ingredients.
The winner of this fight will see his career reinvigorated with potential in-house matches under the PBC umbrella involving Gary Russell or Carl Frampton for the winner. This is a good match that could take us places we want to go.
One of those places might even be a rematch if they deliver.
Sometimes, it’s okay to be optimistic and wait to see what happens. Mares-Santa Cruz is one of those times.
Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com