Amanda Serrano, arguably one of the greatest female boxers in the history of the sport, cemented her position in boxing with an unanimous decision win over Mexican champion, Erika Cruz, and won Cruz’ belt in the process to become undisputed. The undisputed bout was held at the Hulu Theater (previously known as the Madison Square Garden Theater) in New York on February 4. Serrano won by a wide margin judging by the scores of 98-92 twice, and 97-93.
Since she first unified her titles in 2019 at Featherweight, Amanda Serrano (44-2-1, 30 KO’s) has further broke through in her weight class with more unifications in 2021 and 2022. Erika Cruz (15-2, 3 KO’s) was the last obstacle in her way to becoming undisputed, and Serrano completed her last hurdle in a masterful fashion.
Erika Cruz adopted a straightforward, aggressive approach towards Serrano, whose initial approach was relying on her counterpunching abilities while looking to figure out her opponent. Despite her intensity, Cruz was outmatched as Serrano applied a combination of boxing, counterpunching and pressuring to mitigate Cruz’s offense, and keep her on the backfoot through most of the fight.
After suffering a cut in the third round, Erika Cruz seemed to be losing her aggressive step even more, allowing Serrano to dominate most of the rounds and work on her on the inside. Her aggressive approach was therefore ineffective as she sought to deal with the injury and penetrate Serrano’s solid defenses.
In the sixth round, Amanda Serrano gained the upperhand in the closing minute of the round and nearly capitalized on a potential knockdown or knockout when she stunned Cruz, but Cruz determinedly hung on even as she was pushed onto the ropes.
With Cruz’ tendency to mostly throw power shots, Serrano eventually took control entirely and steered herself to a comfortable win in the remaining rounds. Following the bell of the 10th round, Serrano was declared the winner by unanimous decision and crowned the undisputed champion of the Featherweight women’s division, thereby becoming the first female boxer to hold that distinction in that weight class, and the first Puerto Rican boxer to ever become undisputed.
Undisputed Lightweight champion, Katie Taylor (22-0, 6 KO’s), stepped into the ring not long after for a joint-announcement and face-off with Serrano in anticipation of a rematch that will be held between the on May 20, in Dublin, Ireland.
The rest of the card saw Baumgardner also successfully become undisputed in her weight class, the 130 lbs division, which is expanded upon in our separate news story. Prospects Richardson Hitchins (16-0, 7 KO’s) and John Bauza (17-1, 7 KO’s), both Americans, clashed together in a heated contest that saw Hitchins claim a crucial career victory and bragging rights over his rival.
A match between two female prospects, Skye Nicolson (6-0, 0 KO’s) and Tania Alvarez (7-1, 1 KO’s) saw Nicolson win a fairly one-sided match to continue her unbeaten run.
Shadashia Green (12-0, 11 KO’s), proved herself to be the one of the most dangerous potential challengers to Franchon Crews-Dezurn’s (8-1, 2 KO’s) reign as the Super Middleweight undisputed champion, as she netted the only other stoppage/knockout win on the fight card by stopping former world champion Elin Cederroos (8-2, 4 KO’s) in the sixth round of their fight.
Overall, the fight card proved to be fight card – which heavily futured both the top female boxers and prospects – that met expectations while retaining its entertaining nature. Though the entire card saw only two knockouts/stoppages as the end result, the fighters put up spectacular performances in their respective fights.
