Cruz, Maldonado headline Golden Boy show in Pharr

Eric “La Maquina” Cruz (13-7-3, 13 knockouts) defends his WBC Youth World lightweight title against Fidel Maldonado Jr. (11-0, 10 KOs) in the eight-round main event of today’s Golden Boy/Cavazos Boxing show at Pharr Events Center.

The event’s top two or three bouts will be televised on Telefutura’s “Solo Boxeo Tecate.” The card’s first fight is scheduled for 7 p.m.

“I’m in pretty good shape, and I’m here to make my first title defense,” Cruz said. “I don’t know too much about my opponent, but I’m ready for a war.”

Maldonado, a Golden Boy fighter from Albuquerque, N.M., stepped in to face Cruz when Weslaco’s Omar “Panterita” Figueroa, another Golden Boy fighter, had to bow out last week due to an injury suffered while training.

“It feels great to be in the main event and be fighting for the WBC title,” Maldonado said. “It’ll be an exciting fight with a lot of power (punches). Somebody’s going to get knocked out.” 

The co-main event will be a six-round welterweight matchup between Jorge Suarez (4-0, three KOs) of San Antonio and Larry Smith (10-6, seven KOs) of Dallas.

On the undercard, it’s welterweight Raul Tovar (8-5-1, three KOs) of Mission vs. Miguel Pizaro (2-4, one KO) of San Antonio, junior welterweight Juan Reyna (2-0, one KO) of Brownsville vs. Juan Ovalle (4-5-1, three KOs) of Mercedes, bantamweight Joey “Rocket” Garcia (0-0) of Weslaco vs. Javier Rodriguez (0-0) of San Antonio and featherweight Gilbert Cancino (0-0) of Brownsville vs. Hector Gutierrez (0-1) of Mission.

For ticket information, call (956) 369-0742, (956) 475-3434 or (800) 745-3000.

Roy Hess covers boxing for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him via e-mail at rhess@brownsvilleherald.com