“If Andy Cruz wants to show what they’ve been saying about him is true, he’s got to come out and fight,” Burgos said on Thursday. “The pressure is all on him.”
The boxers spent the opening round taking the measure of each other, Burgos trying to use his size advantage and Cruz working to establish distance and rhythm.
Cruz quickly found both, popping Burgos with two jabs and a hard right in the third round. Just before the bell, Cruz leaned back to avoid a left hook, then whacked Burgos with a counter right. In the fourth round, Cruz started landing uppercuts, and by the fifth, Cruz, the slicker boxer, was stalking Burgos. A right hand to the jaw knocked a misty cloud of sweat from Burgos’s head.
“A lot of times I thought I was close to knocking him out, but he always recovered,” Cruz said. “I learned a lot, and I still have a lot to learn.”
Ennis, the Philadelphia native who took over as Cruz’s trainer in May, was impressed, but not surprised, at the quick transition. He has been schooling Cruz on the subtle, but important, differences between the two versions of the sport, drilling him on punching with power on offense and standing his ground on defense.
“He’s only been with me two months, and he’s picked up the defense and everything,” Ennis said. “And he did it under the lights.”
Cruz was originally scheduled to turn pro in May 2022 in Mexico, under a partnership between Cuba’s boxing federation and a promoter based in Aguascalientes. But Cuban officials canceled his bout and left him behind while the rest of the team traveled to Mexico. At the time, officials blamed poor practice habits; Cruz suspects the decision was aimed at preventing him from defecting.
For all the latest Sports News Click Here
