By Keith Idec
Leo Santa Cruz isn’t the disrespectful, trash-talking type.
Thus the WBA “super” world featherweight champion knows that if he doesn’t dismantle Miguel Flores quickly February 16, he’ll have to endure plenty of criticism.
Santa Cruz (35-1-1, 19 KOs), of Rosemead, California, is heavily favored to defeat Flores in their 12-round, 126-pound title bout. The accompanying pressure isn’t lost on the defending champion.
“It’s very important not only because it’s on TV and stuff, but because people don’t think much of Miguel Flores,” Santa Cruz told BoxingScene.com on Thursday after a press conference in Los Angeles. “They’re saying he’s not a good fighter, stuff like that, that he’s not known. People are expecting me to get him out of there fast, so if I don’t do that, if the fight is tough, they’re gonna be talking sh*t about me, saying that, ‘Oh, Leo couldn’t finish him off,’ and, ‘He’s a nobody,’ and stuff like that.”
FOX will air the Santa Cruz-Flores fight as the main event of a “Premier Boxing Champions on FOX” telecast February 16 from Microsoft Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles.
“I’m just gonna be focused in the fight and try to do my best,” Santa Cruz said. “Because he’s a fighter like me. He comes to leave everything in the ring and I know he’s gonna come and give me a tough fight.”
Houston’s Flores (23-2, 11 KOs) lost back-to-back bouts by technical knockout to Dat Nguyen (20-3, 7 KOs) and Chris Avalos (27-6, 20 KOs) in 2017.
Nguyen floored Flores in the sixth round of their bout, the same round in which their scheduled 10-rounder was stopped in February 2017 in Houston. Against Avalos, however, Flores was ahead by the same score, 48-46, on all three scorecards when a ringside doctor determined Flores shouldn’t continue due to a nasty gash on his left eyebrow in July 2017.
The 30-year-old Santa Cruz recognizes that, as a huge underdog, Flores has nothing to lose. The three-division champion assumes his challenger will fight accordingly.
“He’s a tough fighter,” Santa Cruz said. “He comes forward, throws a lot of punches, he puts pressure on you and works the body really good. Maybe the weakness he has is he can get dropped, and that’s what we’re trying to look for right there. I’ll try to land that good shot and try to knock him out.
“I have the pressure on top of me that I wanna go out there and knock him out. So, I think that makes it more difficult for me. But I’m just gonna fight relaxed, go out there as if it’s one of those big, important fights. Hopefully that makes it easier and I can win the fight easy, too.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
