Pitbull Cruz seeks to make Angel Fierro matchup a Fight of the Year

LAS VEGAS – To hear Nonito Donaire tell it, the secret to creating a Fight of the Year is letting go of who will win or lose and embracing the fact that you’re engaged in a legacy fight for all time.

It happened to Donaire in his 2019 classic with Japan’s currently undisputed junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue, when Donaire fractured Inoue’s orbital bone with a vicious left and then later went down on a body shot before both warriors slugged their way to the final bell.

“When a fighter is in there like that, when the challenge is there, the outcome doesn’t matter anymore,” Donaire told PPV.COM on Wednesday at fighter workouts inside MGM Grand.

“You’re going to get in there and do whatever you need to do.”

As the expectation exists that Saturday night’s pay-per-view main event between unbeaten light heavyweights David Benavidez and David Morrell Jnr will rank as an all-timer, the 140lbs undercard bout pitting recent WBA titleholder Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz versus Mexican countryman Angel Fierro features all the attributes fight fans crave:

• A desperate-to-win ex-titlist coming off a loss
• A perturbed contender feeling snubbed because Cruz briefly entered into a May bout with Ryan Garcia
• Two Mexican fighters carrying resumes loaded with wars
• Fierro, 23-2-2 (18 KOs), and Cruz, 26-3-1 (18 KOs), both craving mano-a-mano action

“I believe we can steal the night and this can be Fight of the Year,” Fierro told PPV.COM. “Nothing to worry about. He’s a tough fighter. But I’m preparing 100 per cent.”

Even though Cruz ultimately withdrew from a verbal commitment to be Garcia’s May 2 comeback opponent in New York – he has been replaced by the former 140lbs belt holder he defeated last year, Rolando “Rolly” Romero – Fierro said he has used the dalliance as motivation.

“I don’t know what is happening with Ryan Garcia, but I feel [Cruz is] underestimating me,” Fierro said. “And he’s going to see what’s going to happen. I know people don’t believe in me, but he’s going to see.”

Cruz is hell-bent to restore his destructive reputation after getting frustrated by new WBO titleholder Jose “Rayo” Valenzuela in their August 3 bout in Los Angeles.

“You’re going to see a hungrier ‘Pitbull,’ a ‘Pitbull’ off the chain,” Cruz said, explaining he dropped out of the Garcia fight because “I wasn’t going to lose my focus on the Fierro fight.

“I’ll do everything in my power to make this Fight of the Year, no doubt about it.”

Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.