Is Andy Cruz the most avoided man in boxing?

Lightweight contender Andy Cruz (5-0, 2 KOs) hopes to land some big fights in 2025 following his 10-round unanimous decision victory over Omar Salido (20-2, 14 KOs) at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas on last Saturday. evening.

(Credit: Melina Pizano/Matchroom)

cross dominates

Cruz’s trainer, Derek ‘Bozy’ Ennis, wanted him to go all out for a knockout after repeatedly hurting Salido since the eighth round, but he was unable to do so. Still won 99-91, 98-92 and 98-92. The judges were kind to give Salido a few rounds because he didn’t seem to win any of them. It should have been 100-90 x 3.

Cruz’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, did not elaborate on who he might fight next. He mentioned going the IBF route, but that doesn’t seem like a possibility for Andy to get a title shot in 2025.

Ideally, Hearn would like to match Cruz with Keyshawn Davis, but he’s not interested at all. Keyshawn showed up last night, but probably only to be seen as a wrestler partnered with rising Cuban star Andy Cruz in the fans.

“If I had to rate my performance, I would say it was good, but there is always room for improvement,” Andy Cruz told social boxingevaluating his performance in his unilateral victory against Omar Salcido last Saturday night.

I put my maximum effort into the fight, but it was against a good, tough opponent. “I was looking for a knockout from the beginning because I knew that given my skill, there was no way he could beat me on points,” Cruz continued.

“Then what I did was realize that I was much faster than him. He was much slower than me. So I went out there, took advantage of that speed and in the end I almost got him out of there.”

The fight was a mismatch, as Salido was not in the same league as Andy Cruz, and that was obvious from the beginning of the fight. Salido was simply charging every shot from the start, looking to score a knockout because he clearly knew his only path to victory was to get lucky. This is how he fought in his previous fight against Chris Colbert on October 16. He was putting maximum power into every punch, which ultimately paid off with a ninth KO victory.

“I think it’s important that you do it because you have to look for a lot of different ways,” Cruz said. “You face a lot of different fighters and a lot of strong opponents. So you face a lot of different situations in the ring and you have to be prepared to understand what you do in those situations.

“What I have to do is work very hard to be precise, to be fast, but also to go in and fight this way to go in and do what I have to do.

Keyshawn Bitterness

“I went in there, since he is my son. I wanted to give him a big hug, but I was rejected. I don’t know if he’s mad at mebut hopefully we can reconcile our differences in the future the next time we meet,” Cruz said of Keyshawn Davis’ rejection when she tried to hug him last Saturday after his victory over Salcido at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.

Keyshawn Davis is still quite bitter about his four losses against Cruz in the amateur tournament and the bad time boxing fans are having for him. From the way Keyshawn talks, it seems like he sees himself as a star who doesn’t need to take risky fights.

He hasn’t fought anyone yet to have that kind of high view of himself, and he came to pro after failing against Cruz in the amateur tournament. He won’t dare fight Cruz and have him ruin his chances of making easy money.

“What I need to do now is enjoy this victory and keep doing what I’m doing, which is keep moving up and progressing with each fighter. I face a tougher fight with every fighter he has. What I can say is that 2025 will be very, very interesting,” Cruz said.

Hearn Options

What will be interesting is to see if promoter Eddie Hearn can line up Andy Cruz with a world title shot in 2025 because the chances of him getting a shot against these three fighters are non-existent:

–Gervonta Davis
– Shakur Stevenson
–Keyshawn Davis

None of those fighters have expressed interest in fighting Andy Cruz, and that’s not likely to change in 2026. Cruz is too good. It will be necessary for Turki Al-Sheikh to convince one of these fighters to agree to fight him.

Cruz can always count on sanctioning bodies to call a fight, but as we’ve seen with them, champions can fend off dangerous mandatory challengers for years. Boxing needs to change to stop champions from avoiding their contenders because it hurts the sport.