Roberto de la Cruz (born November 21, 1941, in

Baguio Baguio ( , ), officially the City of Baguio ( ilo, Siudad ti Baguio; fil, Lungsod ng Baguio), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines. It is known as the "Summer Capital of the Philippines", ...

Philippine Commonwealth The Commonwealth of the Philippines ( es, Commonwealth de Filipinas or ; tl, Komonwelt ng Pilipinas) was the administrative body that governed the Philippines from 1935 to 1946, aside from a period of exile in the Second World War from 1942 ...

) is a Filipino former professional boxer. Cruz won the WBA World Light Welterweight title in a career that spanned from 1955 to 1968.

Early life

Roberto Cruz was born on November 21, 1941, in Baguio, Philippines.

Professional career

Cruz made his professional debut on February 10, 1955, losing to Laureano Llarenas via a four round points decision. It took until his third fight to achieve his first victory, beating Peping Cortez with a third round knockout. Cruz's first title success came on October 1, 1959, when he beat Leo Espinosa over twelve rounds for the Philippines Games & Amusement Board (GAB)

Featherweight Featherweight is a weight class in the combat sports of boxing, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, and Greco-Roman wrestling. Boxing Professional boxing History A featherweight boxer weighs in at a limit of . In the early days of the division, t ...

title. Over the next three years Cruz also won the GAB

Welterweight Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify th ...

title but also suffered five defeats in non-title bouts. On March 21, 1963, Cruz fought outside the Philippines for the first time as he travelled to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

to fight the Mexican boxer

Battling Torres Raymundo "Battling" Torres (17 February 1941 – 11 November 1972) was a Mexican junior lightweight who fought from 1957 to 1967. Torres was a puncher, but proved to have difficulty taking punches himself. Thus, he was knocked out in many of his ...

for the vacant WBA Light Welterweight title. The fight took place at

Dodger Stadium Dodger Stadium is a baseball stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

as part of a title triple-header which also featured;

Emile Griffith Emile Alphonse Griffith (February 3, 1938 – July 23, 2013) was a professional boxer from the U.S. Virgin Islands who won world titles in three weight divisions. He held the world light middleweight, undisputed welterweight, and middleweight ...

vs Luis Manuel Rodriguez at

welterweight Welterweight is a weight class in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like Muay Thai, taekwondo, and mixed martial arts also use it for their own weight division system to classify th ...

and Sugar Ramos vs Davey Moore at featherweight. Cruz, who was the underdog, knocked Torres out in the first round to win the title. However, the night will be remembered more for the hospitalization and eventual death of Moore following his fight with Ramos. For the first defence of his title Cruz returned to the Philippines to fight the American Eddie Perkins on June 15, 1963. Perkins, a former world champion, won the fight with a fifteen round points victory in front of 25,000 fans at the Rizal Baseball Stadium. The fight started badly for Cruz as he was knocked down in the opening round and badly hurt in the third and sixth rounds. Although he was able to last the distance, he was unable to retain his title and would never fight for a world championship again. The final fight of Cruz's professional career took place on September 28, 1968, in

Angeles City , anthem = Himno ning Angeles (Angeles Hymn) , subdivision_type3 = District , subdivision_name3 = , established_title = Settled , established_date = 1796 , established_title1 = Chartere ...

, Philippines, where he was knocked out in the third round by Fel Pedranza.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cruz, Roberto Living people Featherweight boxers Light-welterweight boxers World boxing champions World Boxing Association champions 1941 births Sportspeople from Baguio Filipino male boxers