WBA featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz could be making the jump to super featherweight for a potential clash with Gervonta Davis.
In an interview with FightHype, Santa Cruz mapped out his next couple of fights and one of them include a fight against Davis, the current WBA super featherweight champion. The interview is also bad news for anyone hoping to see Santa Cruz fight WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr., a unification that has been being built up since last year.
Santa Cruz has not fought since winning a 12-round decision against Rafael Rivera in the main event of a PBC on Fox card from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles in February. As far as his next fight is concerned, Santa Cruz said he wanted a third fight against former champion Carl Frampton, but admitted that Frampton signing a co-promotional deal with Top Rank complicated things as far as making the fight a reality. Santa Cruz then said he wanted to fight Russell, but he will likely defend his WBC title next May against another opponent. Regardless of who it is against, Santa Cruz is planning for his next fight to take place either in June or in July. If there are no other options at featherweight, Santa Cruz could make the start to super featherweight next in order to get acclimated with the new weight class.
"Right now, if all the opponents I want are not available, then we would look for a good opponent at 130 to get used to the weight. Then the next fight could be against 'Tank' Davis. We want the big fights and look for a fourth title," Santa Cruz said.
Davis has not fought since knocking out Hugo Ruiz in the first round of a Showtime-televised main event. Davis is expected to fight this summer in Baltimore, but his next bout has yet to be officially announced.