Smaller venue, bigger card.
Upon further review, those promoting Terence Crawford’s Aug. 3 pursuit of a fourth division title have decided to make the venue more intimate than the massive Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum by shifting their focus next door to BMO Stadium, officials with knowledge of the change told BoxingScene on Monday.
While downsizing from the historic 75,000-plus-seat to the six-year-old 22,000-seat soccer-centered BMO Stadium (formerly Banc of California Stadium), the promotion marking the debut U.S. event of Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh has started significantly beefing up the card with elite talent from Mexico.
In addition to Crawford’s main-event bout against WBA junior middleweight champion Israil Madrimov (10-0-1, 7 KOs), the card is scheduled to include the first 140-pound title defense by Mexico’s new WBA 140-pound champion Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz and the return of former world heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz Jr., the officials told BoxingScene.
A formal news conference to announce the card is scheduled for Wednesday in New York. Earlier Monday, BoxingScene reported that the Crawford-Madrimov bout will also be for the WBO interim junior middleweight title (while champion Sebastian Fundora recovers from a broken nose).
Cruz (26-2-1, 18 KOs) won his belt with an electrifying eighth-round stoppage of former champion Rolando “Rolly” Romero on March 30 in the co-main event to Fundora’s two-belt, junior middleweight title victory over Australia’s Tim Tszyu in Las Vegas.
Cruz was the prohibitive fan favorite among all fighters on that card, and his handlers immediately let it be known he would return quickly, in a bout in either Los Angeles or Las Vegas.
Cruz’s Aug. 3 opponent will reportedly be Mexico's Jose "El Rayo" Valenzuela (13-2, 9 KOs), who defeated Chris Colbert in December.
Former heavyweight champion Ruiz (35-2, 22 KOs), who produced the dramatic 2019 title victory as a replacement opponent for then-three-belt-champion Anthony Joshua, hasn’t fought since his September 2022 unanimous decision triumph over former title challenger Luis Ortiz at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
Ruiz, from Imperial, Calif., boosts the popularity of the card as he’ll attempt to better position himself, at age 34, to re-emerge as a contender to the likes of champions Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk in a division loaded with serious contenders.
Ruiz’s Aug. 3 opponent is reportedly former contender Jarrell "Big Baby" Miller (26-1-1, 22 KOs), who showed up very overweight for his Dec. 23 loss to Daniel Dubois in Saudi Arabia, meaning these two notoriously heavy men may combine to weigh more than 600 pounds on fight night.
Another possible fight that has been discussed for the card is a farewell bout for former three-division champion Abner Mares – a trilogy bout against his Los Angeles rival, four-division champion Leo Santa Cruz.
That match has yet to be finalized, three officials told BoxingScene Monday, and it’s possible that it will either take place later in the year or that just Santa Cruz will participate in the Aug. 3 card.
Santa Cruz (38-2-1, 19 KOs) told BoxingScene last month that he is ready to fight again following a layoff dating to his February 2022 super featherweight victory over Keenan Carbajal.
