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Isaac Cruz Dominates Late Replacement Omar Salcido For Wide Decision Victory
Results
Keith Idec
Keith Idec
RingMagazine.com
Isaac Cruz Dominates Late Replacement Omar Salcido For Wide Decision Victory
LAS VEGAS — Omar Salcido seemed to realize by about the third round Saturday night that fighting Isaac Cruz on such short notice wasn’t his best idea.

The game Mexican did his best to fend off the ferocious “Pitbull,” and an aggressive, dangerous Cruz never stopped coming forward and landed hard right hands and left hooks that made it difficult for Salcido to stand his ground throughout their 10-round junior welterweight bout at MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Mexico City’s Cruz consistently landed the more meaningful punches, recorded a debatable 10th-round knockdown and won their bout by unanimous decision on the Manny Pacquiao-Mario Barrios undercard.




All three judges — Max De Luca (100-88), Don Trella (99-89) and Steve Weisfeld (99-89) — scored Cruz a convincing winner against an opponent who took their fight on Friday afternoon. Salcido had significant height and reach advantages, though that didn’t prevent Cruz (28-3-1, 18 KOs) from working his way inside and landing punches that would’ve knocked out opponents with less reliable chins.

“You’ve gotta give Omar the ultimate respect for stepping up and facing me,” Cruz told Jim Gray during his post-fight interview in the ring.

Salcido (20-3, 14 KOs), who has never been knocked out, replaced Cruz’s original opponent, Angel Fierro, on less than 30 hours’ notice.

Fierro (23-3-2, 18 KOs), of Tijuana, Mexico, withdrew from their highly anticipated, 12-round rematch because he severely struggled to get down the contracted weight limit of 140 pounds. Robert Garcia, Fierro’s trainer, explained in a statement on X that he felt it was too dangerous to allow Fierro to continue trying to make weight.

Salcido was scheduled to face North Las Vegas’ Brian Gallegos (8-1, 6 KOs) in an eight-round bout on the non-pay-per-view portion of the Pacquiao-Barrios undercard.

If nothing else, Salcido showed that he could take Cruz’s vaunted power right up until the final bell sounded.

Cruz went all out to knock him out in the final round. He landed a right hand that rocked Salcido and was credited with a knockdown with 25 seconds left.




It seemed as if Cruz partially pushed him to the canvas after landing that flush right hand. Referee Mark Nelson still counted it as a knockdown.

About 15 seconds earlier, Nelson deducted a point from Salcido for using his shoulder to push Cruz away from him.

Cruz really opened up on a retreating Salcido with head and body shots during the middle minute of the eighth round. Salcido survived that onslaught, but he didn’t hit hard enough to make Cruz think twice about pressuring.

Cruz cracked Salcido with a left hook and then a right hand in the final 15 seconds of the fourth. It was obvious by then that Cruz was the harder puncher and would walk through Salcido’s shots while trying to score a knockout.

Regardless, their one-sided fight didn’t at all resemble the brutal battle between Cruz and Fierro five months ago. Cruz won their 10-round “Fight of the Year” frontrunner by unanimous decision on the David Benavidez-David Morrell Jr. undercard in Las Vegas.
Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing


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