An overhand right from Andy Cruz crashed into Hironori Mishiro’s left cheek, staggering the stubborn Japanese challenger midway through the fifth round of their showdown at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. Another right hand from Cruz sent Mishiro backpedalling.
Those two concussive punches were, to paraphrase the 1990s rap duo Mobb Deep, the start of Mishiro’s ending.
A quick flurry punctuated by a bolo punch to the belly. Then an overhand right drove Mishiro to the ropes before referee Eric Dali stepped in and stopped the fight.
The emphatic win improved Cruz’ pro record to 6-0 (3 KO), and sent a clear message to the rest of the lightweight division. Two years into his pro career, Cruz, a 29-year-old Olympic gold medalist from Matanzas, Cuba, isn’t just improving.
He’s evolving.
Cruz arrived in the U.S. in the spring of 2023 as a savvy tactical boxer, and a slick technician who needed to learn how to set down on his punches. Now, he’s knocking people out. Like an early-1980s Rickey Henderson discovering launch angle, Cruz is adding surprising power to his best-in-class speed, to his benefit and the rest of the division’s dismay.
With each beatdown, Cruz also puts dents in the stereotype that Cuban pros are sublimely skilled but about as entertaining as preparing a tax return, and that their defense-first style doesn’t translate to professional boxing.
Satuday’s win makes Cruz the mandatory challenger for the IBF lightweight title, and should line him up for a showdown with interim champ Raymond Muratalla later this year. It’s an easy matchup to sell — Muratalla, the lastest in a long line of outstanding Mexican and Mexican-American lightweights, against Cruz, untouchable as an amateur, the leader of Cuba’s New School in the pros.
“This is just another step in my journey toward my main objective, which is to become a world champion,” Cruz said in the ring after dispatching Mishiro on Saturday.
The substance of Saturday’s fights matters. Cruz calmly dissected Mishiro, now 17-2-1, and demonstrated that aggressiveness, entertainment value and defensive responsibility can, in fact, coexist in the same boxer.
But the timing is important, too.
Cruz’ biggest win unfolded precisely 23 months after his pro debut, and exactly one week after Keyshawn Davis, his amateur rival, and the other side of a projected mega-fight in the professional ranks, self-destructed. He missed weight on Friday, and had his WBO title stripped. The next day he showed up at the arena and allegedly tried to start a locker room brawl with Nahir Albright, who had just won a majority decision over Keyshawn’s brother, Kelvin Davis.
And Cruz?
He cruised through his toughest professional matchup, and hasn’t flinched during the transition from the sport of amateur boxing to the spectacle of pro prizefighting. The crowds, the attention, the pressure — it’s exactly what Cruz sought when he defected from Cuba in late 2022. Now that he’s found it, he’s showing he knows how to react.
Like a professional.
There was Cruz in round two, stalking the taller fighter, following an overhand right with a sharp left hook to the body.
And there he was in the third, hooking off the jab then landing two right hands to the temple, sending Mishiro to the deck.
It’s what happens when La Finca meets Philadelphia.
The Cuban school of boxing, itself a melding of homegrown boxing sabiduría and Soviet-era technical precision, says “hit and don’t get hit.” And in Philadelphia, where gym wars become boxing folklore, and toughness is a pre-requisite, it’s more like, “hit and don’t panic when you get hit… which you will.”
So for Bozy Ennis, the veteran trainer who runs the Philly’s Next Champ gym, coaching Cruz isn’t about reprogramming him. It’s just about refining his skills.
“I don’t take nothing away — I just add on, sharpen up and teach him my style,” Ennis said in a 2023 interview with the New York Times. “Catching the right hand, left hook. Rolling under shots, come back with the counter. That’s what I have him doing.”
That tension is present whenever a high-achieving Cuban amateur turns pro. They’re aren’t just fighting opponents — they’re up against politics both here and back home, and battling the antiquated perception that they’re runners who aren’t built to hurt opponents or entertain fans.
William Scull, a Cuban expat who just put on a 12-round dance-a-thon in losing to Canelo Alvarez, appears to be the latest example of a scared-to-engage Cuban runner exposed in the pros.
But it’s also fair to question why Canelo couldn’t, or simply didn’t, cut off the ring and force Scull to fight. And a quick survey of world class Cuban professionals tells you that they either learn very quickly to plant their feet and punch with authority — think Robeisy Ramirez — or they arrive in the U.S. eager to shatter image of the Boring Cuban run-and-clutch fighter.
Yoenlis Hernandez. David Morell. Yoenis Tellez. And now Andy Cruz. They’re here to knock you out, or beat you up in the effort. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a pattern.
“The Cubans today are different from the Cubans I trained way back in the day,” said Ronnie Shields, who coaches Morell and Tellez, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. “Those guys were movers. They were boxers. These Cubans come to fight today.”
For the lighweight division in particular, it’s a problem. Cruz is six bouts into his pro career and already prepared for a title shot, but he’s still making noticeable improvements between fights.
After two years in the U.S. he’s a bigger, stronger, version of his former self, like Hologram Tupac come to life. But he’s as fast and accurate as ever. Those heat-seeking right hands to the body and head rarely miss, but they’re landing with more impact every time out. And he still employs that jab with immaculate timing and precision, to unsettle his opponent, to create space for himself, to set up the rest of his offense, or to do damage on its own.
And power?
Early vintage pro Andy Cruz hit hard enough to win by attrition. The 2025 version can put you on the canvas. That’s a new tool in an already formidable skill set.
Granted, we haven’t seen him against a quick-thinking, fast-handed boxer since he turned pro, and maybe presenting him with a tactical puzzle to solve will slow him down. But an amateur résumé that includes three world titles and Olympic gold suggests that he’s happy to beat you in a chess match.
In the meantime, give me more of what we’ve been seeing. Andy Cruz against a committed pressure fighter is the best style matchup in boxing.
Sign me up for it, every single time.
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