IF he turns pro then he'd better do it quick. He's already 28 (if his age documentation is accurate) and has been on the amateur circuit competing against the best in the world and dominating his division for the last half decade. He just won the Worlds again in September for the
fourth consecutive time and last year notably became the first Light Heavyweight Olympic Champion in Cuban boxing history. Though he did come up short at the 2012 Olympics when he entered as the reigning World Champion against Yamaguchi Falcao. He'd beaten him handily the year prior at the Pan Ams which made the upset even more surprising. Still, his extremely impressive medal haul can't be ignored.
My expectations of him would be that he'd likely win a world title not too long after turning pro
if he turns pro soon. The knock is that he relies
very heavily on his elite athleticism, his excellent reflexes in particular, and that doesn't age well.
For the last couple years he's been the universally recognized P4P #1 amateur boxer in the world. He's
AIBA's World Rankings leading points scorer across all divisions. His current tally is 3,000 pts, which is accumulated over a two year rolling period, 400 pts ahead of the rest of the pack regardless of division. The closest boxers to him in points accumulated as of September are Hasanboy Dusmatov (2,600 pts), Shakhram Giyasov (2,600 pts) & Evgeny Tishchenko (2,600 pts), the latter of which got a nice gift last year at the Rio Olympics against Vasily Levit. Dusmatov won the Val Barker Trophy in Rio but La Cruz could've just as easily won it for his impressive run (didn't lose a single round).
Record & Losses
According to
Boxing Scoop's database his amateur record is 151-12 (take it with some salt). However, I was able to verify all 12 of his AOB (AIBA Open Boxing) international amateur losses through his
AIBA profile along with 2 additional semi-pro losses not accounted for from his
World Series of Boxing profile where he's currently 23-3 as the Cuba Domadores' national team captain. WSB is considered semi-pro but in Europe it's still viewed as the amateur ranks. BoxRec & Fight Fax (as of last year) don't count any WSB or APB bouts as professional bouts, so,
he'd start out with a clean record as a pro. Hopefully he would decide to go the standard professional boxing route and not through AIBA's APB banner. He's never been stopped that we know of but he has been dropped before in competition, at least once. He was dropped at the 2014 Cuban National Championships while trying to dodge a punch in his usual fashion and was caught on the chin. He's definitely not "untouchable", no one is, but he is one hell of an athlete and a great unorthodox Cuban stylist. He started boxing when he was only 6 years old.
Russian Nikita Ivanov (2013 European Champion & 2011 European Runner-Up/Silver Medalist) beat him twice & it doesn't appear that La Cruz was ever able to get back a win during their meetings, suggesting that Ivanov may have his number. He defeated him in 2011 & again in 2014 in the WSB. Venezuelan Albert Ramirez beat him twice where La Cruz was able to beat him once. Ramirez was the last man to beat him in the amateur ranks in the final of the
2015 American Confederation Boxing Championships.
Ramirez also most recently beat him in March of this year in the WSB. Eleider Alvarez was also able to beat him twice during La Cruz's first year as a senior level boxer in 2008, defeating him the last two times they met. La Cruz was able to beat him once in their first meeting the same year. Coincidentally, he lost in 2008 to Vyacheslav Shabranskyy who beat him on points 12-4. Shabranskyy is fighting Kovalev
tonight for the vacant Light Heavyweight WBO world title.