Léo Santa Cruz

Léodegario Santa Cruz (born 10 August 1988) is a Mexican professional boxer.

The last time CBS aired live boxing was 15 years prior in January 1997 when Bernard Hopkins stopped Glen Johnson.

The fight was one-sided as Santa Cruz went on to win a unanimous decision to retain his IBF title.

Santa Cruz, who was known to have a high punch output did not throw as much as his previous bouts but did enough for the three judges to score the fight 116–112, 118–110, and 119–109 in his favour.

Santa Cruz explained the reason for the lower output was because he felt he had fought a lot recently.

According to CompuBox Stats, Santa Cruz landed 291 of 989 punches thrown (29%) and Guevara landed 158 of his 793 thrown (20%).

Santa Cruz finished the year with 5 wins including 3 title defenses.

Santa Cruz made his professional debut, at the age of 18 on 13 October 2006 against Mexican boxer Pedro Silva, winning the fight via knockout in round 2.

After drawing his second bout in January 2007 against Rodrigo Hernandez, Santa Cruz went on to win his next thirteen fights, with five coming by stoppage.

On 21 October 2010 Santa Cruz beat the veteran James Owens at the Martin's Valley Mansion in Cockeysville, Maryland.

In March 2011, Santa Cruz knocked out the veteran Stephane Jamoye to win the vacant WBC Youth bantamweight championship.

He is a four-weight world champion, having held the IBF bantamweight title from 2012 to 2013, the WBC super bantamweight title from 2013 to 2015, the WBA (Super) featherweight title twice between 2015 and 2022, and the WBA (Super) super featherweight title from 2019 to 2020.

In April 2012, promoter Branco Milenkovic announced that a deal was set for Santa Cruz to fight South African boxer Vusi Malinga (20–3–1, 12 KOs) for the vacant IBF bantamweight title.

The fight was slated for 2 June at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.

The IBF title was left vacant when then-champion Abner Mares moved up in weight.

Santa Cruz beat Malinga via unanimous decision to win the IBF bantamweight title.

The bout was televised on a Showtime boxing card.

Two judges scored Santa Cruz the clear winner with scorecards of 120–108 and the third judge gave Malinga one round, scoring the fight 119–109.

The fight started off with both boxers trying to out land each other, with Santa Cruz landing the cleaner and power shots.

Malinga was hurt numerous times during the fight, but kept coming forward.

In August 2012, it was announced that Santa Cruz would make the first defence of his IBF title on the undercard of Saul Álvarez vs. Josesito López on 15 September at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Paradise, Nevada.

His first defence was rumoured to be against former two-time world champion Eric Morel (46–3, 23 KOs).

On fight night, Santa Cruz wore down Morel with body shots, dominating the fight from the opening bell, forcing Morel to quit on his stool before round 6 began.

CompuBox stats showed that Santa Cruz landed 66% of his power punches.

In total, over five rounds, Santa Cruz landed 277 punches of 509 thrown (54%) and Morel landed 73 of his 344 thrown (21%).

On 29 October 2012 a deal was reached for Santa Cruz to make a second defence of his IBF title at the Staples Center in Los Angeles against Mexican boxer Victor Zaleta (20–2–1, 10 KOs) on a double header featuring WBC super bantamweight champion Abner Mares vs. Anselmo Moreno on 10 November.

The card was to be shown live on Showtime.

Santa Cruz dropped Zaleta three times en route to a TKO victory in round 9 to retain his IBF title.

Santa Cruz started the fight the better boxer and began working the body immediately.

Zaleta was dropped following a body shot in round 4, again in round 7 following a combination of shots to the head and body and the final knockdown in round 9, again from a combination forced the referee to stop the fight.

On 2 December 2012 Golden Boy Promotions announced a double-header which would take place on CBS at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on 15 December where Santa Cruz would make his third defence in four months against unbeaten Mexican boxer Alberto Guevara (16–0, 6 KOs).

On 12 February 2013, Santa Cruz vacated his IBF bantamweight belt to move up to junior featherweight.

Santa Cruz had his first fight at the super bantamweight limit on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Robert Guerrero Showtime Pay-Per-View on 5 May 2013 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The fight was officially announced in March along with the rest of the undercard.

Santa Cruz was originally scheduled to fight Rafael Márquez, but he pulled out due to injury.

Venezuelan veteran, former super flyweight world champion Alexander Muñoz (36–4, 28 KOs) stepped in.

Santa Cruz won the vacant NABF super bantamweight title after stopping Muñoz in round 5.

In January 2018, he reached a peak pound for pound ranking of sixth by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board.

As of April 2021, he is ranked as the world's fourth best active featherweight by BoxRec.

As an amateur, Santa Cruz compiled a record of 148 wins and 7 losses.