By Keith Idec

If Leo Santa Cruz can overcome Carl Frampton on Saturday night, Santa Cruz-Gary Russell Jr. is the most meaningful fight that can be made within the featherweight division.

Both boxers are part of Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions and have told BoxingScene.com recently that they want to fight each other. It should be a relatively easy fight to make for the end of 2016, or early 2017 at the latest.

The problem, unfortunately, is that Santa Cruz (32-0, 18 KOs) and Russell (27-1, 16 KOs) seemingly want to fight Wales’ Lee Selby next more than they want to face each other. England’s Selby (23-1, 8 KOs) owns the IBF’s 126-pound championship and would represent less risk for Santa Cruz and Russell than fighting one another, even if it means traveling to the United Kingdom for a unification showdown with the light-punching Selby.

“Hopefully we’ll get the win against Carl Frampton and everything comes out good,” Santa Cruz told BoxingScene.com. “Then I would like to get a fight against Lee Selby. He’s a champion. He’s been saying he wants to fight me. He’s undefeated, too, so I think it would be a great fight. Frampton’s undefeated, too, so if I get the win, and then if I get a fight against Lee Selby and I beat him, that would be two undefeated fighters I beat. Those would be great victories for my record.”

Twenty-three of Selby’s 24 professional fights have taken place in Wales or England. Santa Cruz, of Rosemead, California, wouldn’t mind increasing Selby’s total to 24 of 25 fights in the United Kingdom.

“It would be an opportunity for me to get some fans over there, too,” said Santa Cruz, who’ll face Frampton (22-0, 14 KOs) in a “Showtime Championship Boxing” main event at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT). “But it all depends on my team. If it was up to me, I would say yes. I would have no problem with going over there because it’s only gonna be me and him up in the ring. So I wouldn’t leave it to the judges. I would go out there and win the fight convincingly, so there are no draws or nothing.”

Russell, of Capitol Heights, Maryland, expressed a similar sentiment when asked about crossing the Atlantic to oppose Selby.

“Everybody loves home-court advantage,” said Russell, who stopped Ireland’s Patrick Hyland (31-2, 15 KOs) in the second round of his last fight, April 16 in Mashantucket, Connecticut. “If it came to it and it wasn’t an issue, I wouldn’t mind going over there and competing. I’ll have to solidify it even more. I’ll have to step on the gas a little more. He’ll be a little comfortable on his own homefront. But it’s not gonna make a difference. As long as they’ve got that square there, that’s all that matters. That’s all I need.”

Selby last fought April 9, when he won a 12-round unanimous decision over Philadelphia’s Eric Hunter (21-4, 11 KOs) at O2 Arena in London. Hunter dropped Selby for the first time in his career in the second round of that bout, but Selby bounced back to win convincingly on all three scorecards (116-110, 116-110, 115-111).

“He got reckless in the second round, when he got dropped,” Russell said. “But it happens. That’s boxing. You’re gonna take a shot. You’ve got to display a level of defensive discipline no matter who you’re competing against. Lee Selby is a world champion for a particular reason. You can’t just stumble on that. My hat’s off to him. With that being said, I still don’t feel he possesses the full ability to stop me.”

Russell, a 2008 Olympian, doesn’t think Santa Cruz can beat him, either. The 28-year-old Russell beat the 27-year-old Santa Cruz in a four-round, 118-pound amateur match nine years ago, at the 2007 U.S. Championships in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“I think Leo is definitely a great fighter,” Russell said. “Once again, he’s a world champion for a reason. A lot of people are just finding out that we’ve competed against each other before. We competed in the 2007 U.S. Championships and I was the reason he couldn’t make the Olympic team, because he couldn’t get past me.”

Russell respects what Santa Cruz has accomplished as a pro, which includes winning world titles in three divisions (bantamweight, super bantamweight and featherweight). Russell noticed during Santa Cruz’s last fight, a fifth-round TKO of Kiko Martinez (35-7-1, 26 KOs) on February 27 in Anaheim, California, that Santa Cruz isn’t as multi-dimensional as him.

“As far as him as a fighter, he always had a professional style, even in the amateurs,” Russell said. “It’s working for him perfectly now. I feel as though he got exposed a little bit in his last fight [against Martinez]. I think he got exposed a little bit in that fight. He had problems dealing with the pressure.

“I think he’s so used to being the aggressor in the fight, that when this guy stepped to him and stayed in his face he put him in unfamiliar territory. It took him a while to make the adjustment, to keep the guy on the outside, to be able to get his distance and find his range with his jab. Once he did do that, he controlled the fight and he won.”

Santa Cruz respects Russell as well, but he wants to avenge that amateur defeat.

“I want to get that rematch,” Santa Cruz said. “I’m interested in that fight. Hopefully that’ll happen in the future because that’ll be a great fight.”

The prideful Santa Cruz thinks he did enough to top Russell the first time they fought.

“The first round we went at it and he was beating me by one point,” Santa Cruz said. “[After] the second round, he was beating me again by one point or two. Then the third round he was beating me by three points. And then in the last round, I went all out. I think I landed the better shots and everything, and I thought that I had won the fight. But at the end they gave him the fight.”

Unless Selby separates them, or Frampton pulls off a mild upset Saturday night, Santa Cruz and Russell could be headed toward an intriguing professional clash that’ll allow us to decide for ourselves.

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.