Santa Cruz-Mares: Fun Night, But Not One To Remember

By Lyle Fitzsimmons

Most people got what they expected.

Whether you’d picked Leo Santa Cruz or Abner Mares heading into Saturday night’s fight in Los Angeles, the overall result – a tough, competitive scrap whose pace never demonstrably slowed over 36 minutes – satisfyingly delivered on what was advertised.

It was a clear triumph for Santa Cruz, who established himself as a real player in a third weight class.

It was a triumph, of sorts, for Mares, who had his most relevant performance in a couple years and placed himself in the running for an encore – and, therefore, a shot at remaining relevant.

And it was a triumph for the PBC series, which has taken its share of matchmaking shots from the smartest-guy-in-the-room set, but produced one that’ll be included four months from now in all breathy Fight of the Year chatter penned by those same resident geniuses.

Speaking for the dumbest guys in the room, though, the jury remains out.

Though it was inarguably a fun 12 rounds, I’m debating exactly how meaningful it was.

Santa Cruz and Mares have hearts the size of watermelons, courage for days and the sort of “you hit me/I hit you” warrior capacity that my gym persona tended to lose after the first few repetitions.

But while I don’t know what it’s like to be that good and that tough, I do know what entertains me.

And after a while on Saturday, Leo and Abner weren’t doing it as much.

So the more I watched Twitter buckle under the weight of 140-character missives during and shortly after the fight, the more I got to thinking of the litmus tests that a match must pass in order for me to change the label from “titillating opening act” to “can’t-miss headliner.”

And in much the same manner as Harold Lederman instructs on HBO that rounds are judged on clean punching, effective aggressiveness, ring generalship and defense, I soon decided my four measures for comparing great fights are current/historical significance, departure from pre-fight expectation, in-fight momentum shifts and level of sustained action.

I applied those criteria to my all-time favorite fight – Diego Corrales vs. Jose Luis Castillo I – and scored the 2005 showdown a perfect 40. Same score goes to the generational classic between Marvin Hagler and my favorite fighter, Thomas Hearns, though the more recent slugfest nudges ahead on criteria only because it lasted 29 minutes as opposed to eight.

The 14-rounder that matched Aaron Pryor and Alexis Arguello for the first time in 1982 gets a 40 as well, while the fourth go-round between Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao in 2012 also warrants the perfect number – thanks to 18 minutes of back and forth that culminated in a shocking conclusion on the sport’s biggest pay-per-view stage.

What all those fights had, in addition to more violence than any 100 “typical” fights, was a compelling angle that involved a championship, a pound-for-pound standing or a legacy – something that drew the viewer’s eye long before the fight itself became pretty good. And it’s having that extra something that allows a match to bypass stimulating and proceed straight to unforgettable.

Corrales-Castillo was a showdown of two of the best lightweights in the world. Hagler-Hearns and Pryor-Arguello involved heavier legends defending turfs against ladder-climbing superstars. Marquez-Pacquiao was the latest in a series of meetings between men whose rivalry has defined an era.

Santa Cruz-Mares, for all its Southern California testosterone, was a 126-pound contender finding precisely the level of stubborn resistance anticipated from a three-division champion clinging desperately to glory that’s been slipping for 24 months. The unbeaten younger man was a 2-1 favorite for a reason, and little that occurred after the first few rounds veered from that storyline.

He won nine of 12 rounds on two scorecards, but once the frenetic blueprint was established early on, the fight never really veered off its path. Neither man ever appeared in danger of a stoppage loss. And as soon as the Mares supporters got used to the idea that Santa Cruz was maybe a bit more complete than they’d expected, the rounds began resembling one another very quickly.

An early-year thriller like Matthysse-Provodnikov surpasses it on my great fight scale because not only was its level of action comparable, but the in-fight intrigue skyrocketed thanks to the Russian’s back-half push. No matter how much “The Machine” dominated early, fans were always locked in to see if Provodnikov could do enough to get a late stoppage, or entirely flip the script on the scorecards.

That was never a real possibility at Staples Center, and it’s one reason why – when the time comes for BWAA members to critique 2015’s best – Saturday will be no more than a footnote on my ballot.

Yes, it made for a fun and entertaining hour on “free” cable.

But when compared to images that stay with you for life, it was just another one-night stand.

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This week’s title-fight schedule:

No fights scheduled.

Last week's picks: 0-0

Overall picks record: 692-239 (74.3 percent)

NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body's full-fledged title-holder – no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA "world championships" are only included if no "super champion" exists in the weight class.

Lyle Fitzsimmons has covered professional boxing since 1995 and written a weekly column for Boxing Scene since 2008. He is a full voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him on Twitter – @fitzbitz.