Isaac Cruz’s manager Sean Gibbons has explained why his fighter turned down a clash with Shakur Stevenson.
Stevenson is the WBC lightweight champion after moving up from 130lbs, where he was a unified champion, and is regarded as one of the best fighters in any weight classes.
Cruz’s last action was in July 2023, when he won against Giovanni Cabrera by split decision, and he has been touted as a potential next opponent for Ryan Garcia.
Speaking to Betway, Gibbons said that super lightweight is now one of the most exciting divisions in boxing.
He said: “Everybody is going up to fight at 140 aside from Shakur Stevenson, somebody nobody wants to watch. I don’t care what weight he’s at, he’s got a boring, ugly, terrible style you’ll see. Cruz and Rolly would be a great fight too, forget about that previous fight Cruz had, that was my fault.
“I take all the blame for putting him in with an awful style of boxing. But that’s what happens when you fight stinky fighters. At the end of the day, we won’t make that mistake again, we want to make exciting fights.
“In 2024, we can’t wait anymore as he hasn’t had a signature fight since Gervonta Davis two years ago. We got ridiculed for turning Shakur down, but we did the fans a favour, thank God we turned the fight down as it would’ve been a bad fight and not because of us. We can’t get Vasyl Lomachenko or George Kambosos Jr so we are focused on either Rolly Romero or Ryan Garcia next. We would fight either in a heartbeat.
“Isaac Cruz has one of the biggest Hispanic followings in boxing. It's either Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez or Isaac Cruz that crosses over to the Hispanic market and we know Ryan Garcia has a huge crossover following too outside of boxing so it has all of the makings of a huge fight.”
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