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Andreas Hale
Lamont Roach Jr. and Isaac Cruz battled to a majority draw Saturday night at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio.
Cruz retained his WBC interim junior welterweight title and Roach left with a second consecutive majority draw this year.
One judge scored the fight 115-111 in favor of Cruz and two judges scored it 113-113.
The fight was even early, with Cruz scoring a third-round knockdown to inch ahead. However, Roach made a strategic adjustment to seemingly take control of the second half of the fight. But it wasn’t enough to prevent him from going winless in his past two fights.
Roach vented his frustration afterward.
“All I want is a fair shake, man. That’s it,” Roach said. “I think I pulled that fight out. … I don’t know what I got to do. But we’re going to go back to the drawing board. I don’t accept this at all. I clearly thought I won a close fight, and I’m tired of this s—, man.”
Fighting out of Washington, D.C., Roach (25-1-3, 10 KOs) was coming off a controversial majority draw against Gervonta “Tank” Davis in March. Unable to land a rematch, Roach had to look elsewhere and opted to move up to 140 pounds to face Cruz (28-3-2, 18 KOs). He entered the fight as the WBA super featherweight titleholder but was stripped of the title once the bell sounded for his fight with Cruz.
Cruz, who went the distance with Davis in a spirited decision loss in 2021, had won six of his seven previous fights, claiming the vacant WBC interim junior welterweight title in his last fight by beating Omar Salcido.
Cruz charged at Roach from the opening bell, firing looping punches. The constant aggression was effective early, although Roach found spots to counter with his left hand. Roach picked his spots while Cruz plowed ahead with reckless abandon. During an exchange in Round 3, a left hand from Cruz knocked Roach off-balance, knocking him down for the first time in his career when his glove touched the canvas. Roach wasn’t hurt, but the damage was done and caused him to alter his approach.
“I knew that he was going to stand his ground and fight toe-to-toe,” Cruz said. “But guess what? I also boxed too, something that people didn’t realize that I could do. I boxed.”
The knockdown caused Roach to fight in the pocket from that point, which led to some furious exchanges on the inside. Cruz worked well to the body while Roach slipped in counters that caught “Pitbull” on the chin. Roach slammed a left hook into Cruz’s face in Round 6, his best punch of the fight to that point. However, he opted to fight on Cruz’s terms rather than try to lean toward his strengths by boxing on the outside and picking off his opponent’s advances.
Roach made a minor adjustment in the middle rounds, using a catch-and-shoot strategy to bait Cruz in. The shift was effective, as he would catch Cruz both coming in and exiting. Cruz was also deducted a point for excessive clinching in Round 7, which brought the fight back to neutral ground and offset the earlier knockdown. Roach had Cruz flustered with the change in strategy and began to take control of the fight, nullifying Cruz’s offensive output and taking the crowd completely out of the fight. However, Cruz sprang to life in the championship rounds, taking the fight to Roach.
It was a close fight that ended in an unsatisfying draw, even though Roach outlanded Cruz 191-159. Both fighters appeared to be interested in a rematch, but Cruz would accept it only if there were a different referee.
“Yeah, absolutely [I want the rematch],” said Cruz. “With a different referee though and without the referee being on his side. I won this fight, and the referee took this fight from me.”
In the co-main event, O’Shaquie Foster dominated Stephen Fulton and cruised to a unanimous decision to become the WBC interim lightweight champion.
The fight was originally set to be contested for Foster’s WBC junior lightweight title, but Fulton came in 2 pounds overweight. The WBC inexplicably changed the stakes of the fight to an interim title fight at 135 pounds with the winner being the mandatory challenger to Shakur Stevenson.
Foster (24-3, 12 KOs) was brilliant in outclassing the former two-division champion throughout the 12-round affair. He tamed Fulton (23-2, 8 KOs) behind a sharp jab and kept him on the outside for long stretches. The champion expertly held court in the center of the ring while Fulton struggled to get inside or land anything of substance.
As the rounds wore on, Fulton’s frustration showed in his approach as Foster began to put combinations behind the jab whenever his opponent attempted to push his way inside.
The judges scored the fight 117-111, 118-110 and 119-109, but it could very well have been scored a shutout because of Foster’s dominance.