Leo Santa Cruz vs. Abner Mares: Preview and Prediction for Featherweight Bout

Two of the biggest names in the featherweight division face off Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, as former three-division champion Abner Mares battles undefeated Leo Santa Cruz for bragging rights in Southern California. 

This should be the stiffest test of Santa Cruz's career and the toughest fight for Mares since his stunning loss to Jhonny Gonzalez by Round 1 knockout in 2013. 

Featherweight is loaded with exciting fighters right now. It's nice to see two of them getting together.

Although they have fought a similar number of fights, Santa Cruz is the far less experienced fighter in terms of quality of opposition. Mares was fighting opponents like Vic Darchinyan nearly five years ago.

Santa Cruz is the taller, longer fighter in this one, but he likes to trade in the pocket, so I'm not sure how much of an advantage it will be for him to have the superior reach.

Information in table courtesy of BoxRec. 

This fight has seemed inevitable for years now. Abner Mares and Leo Santa Cruz are both Mexican natives based out of Los Angeles County. They've appeared on the same cards multiple times. 

Mares was a member of the Mexican Olympic team in 2004. In May 2010, he drew in his first attempt to capture the IBF bantamweight belt against Yonnhy Perez. After taking a split decision from Vic Darchinyan in December 2010, he beat Joseph Agbeko by majority decision to capture the IBF belt. 

After beating Agbeko in a rematch, Mares moved up to 122 pounds and beat Eric Morel for the vacant WBC belt at 122 pounds. He defended it once against the outstanding defensive fighter Anselmo Moreno and then moved up to featherweight and stopped veteran champion Daniel Ponce De Leon by Round 9 TKO to garner the WBC title at 126.

At that point, Mares was legitimately viewed as one of the biggest rising stars in the sport. In less than three years, he had captured world titles in three divisions and done it by beating top fighters in each weight class. 

But in his first defense of the featherweight belt, Mares lost to Jhonny Gonzalez by a stunning Round 1 knockout in August 2013. He's won three fights since, but none of them against world-class competition. 

Santa Cruz has an exciting, all-action style and has held alphabet soup belts at 118 and 122 pounds, but at this point he's developed into one of the sport's most overprotected fighters. His opponents have been obscure or aging veterans fighting above their best weights. 

Mares is a great opponent for Santa Cruz in his first serious test. The winner of this fight will be positioned for some kind of title shot at 126 pounds. 

Leo Santa Cruz is a busy fighter. He throws a lot of punches from a lot of angles and generally does a good job of finishing in a good, tight defensive position when he finishes a flurry. 

He's not a huge puncher, but he lands a lot of power shots that can add up over the course of several rounds. 

Abner Mares is a versatile fighter. He has good technical skill and can also brawl tough on the inside.

Mares has been in the ring with some good opposition. His experience should be a big strength in this matchup.  

Leo Santa Cruz is making a big step up in competition for this fight. Probably the best win on his record is against Eric Morel, whom he beat in Morel's final fight. Lack of experience against top opponents could be an issue for him. 

Santa Cruz is a wide-open fighter who leaves a lot of space to get hit. 

Abner Mares has yet to fight a top-ranked opponent since his stunning knockout loss to Jhonny Gonzalez two years ago. So he has some big questions to answer in this fight, and that could create pressure for him. 

Mares is not a big featherweight. Even though Santa Cruz is also a former bantamweight, he has a size advantage in this fight. 

Santa Cruz has only shown one way of fighting during his career. He marches forward, throws a bunch of punches and overwhelms his opponent. 

That could be much tougher to do against Mares than it has been against his previous opponents. So Santa Cruz will need to come into this fight mentally prepared for an opponent who will be ready to stand up to him. 

Santa Cruz does a nice job of finishing his combinations with his hands back in a good defensive position. That will be crucial against Mares.

Santa Cruz also needs to take advantage of his reach advantage. I'm not saying he needs to try to keep Mares on the outside and box at a distance, but he should use his three-inch edge to catch Mares coming forward. 

To win this fight, Santa Cruz is going to need to hang tough and ride out some rounds when things aren't going his way. That's a challenge that he hasn't had to deal with before. 

Mares will need to use a crisp jab to work his way into range against the longer Santa Cruz. The latter is used to pushing the pace, so if Mares can seize the role of aggressor, he'll put Santa Cruz in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable position. 

Mares needs to be the better ring general in this fight, dictating the pace and disrupting Santa Cruz's ability to string together multiple punch flurries. He's going to want to be aggressive but also use tactical retreats to move away and reset from a different angle. 

This should be an all-action fight, but Mares will want to use technical boxing to score with more accuracy and efficiency while minimizing the damage that he takes. 

This should be a competitive fight, and I won't be surprised to see it go either way. But my prediction is that Mares wins by unanimous decision. He's a better pure boxer than Santa Cruz, and that should allow him to fight more tactically and win the majority of the rounds. 

Santa Cruz wins fights by outworking and overwhelming his opponents. But Mares should have the skill to get off first at times and adjust to Santa Cruz's aggression while countering smartly. 

This fight is for something called the WBC "Diamond" belt, so the winner should almost certainly be in position for a title shot at WBC champion Gary Russell Jr., who looked outstanding last March when he took the title from Jhonny Gonzalez by Round 4 TKO. 

Either Mares or Santa Cruz would make for an exciting matchup with Russell. Hopefully, we'll see it happen later this year or early in 2016.