Boxing
Gary Russell Jr. uses Leo Santa Cruz's father in video, trying to force featherweight title unification fight
Anything to make a fight happen — with an emphasis on anything.
In an attempt to force a featherweight title unification bout with Leo Santa Cruz, Gary Russell Jr. on Saturday posted an Instagram video of himself pulling up and surprising Santa Cruz's father. The footage shows Russell draping his arm around Santa Cruz's dad and touching the gold chains dangling around his neck.
"You see the chains ... I like 'em," Russell says in the clip about Santa Cruz's dad, who is battling cancer and doesn't speak English, right next to him. "Stop ducking me. Stop ducking me. Come see me. I want you. I want you."
He added, warning Santa Cruz over his dad: "I'm within arms reach. I could touch him. I could put my hands on him."
Santa Cruz, the WBA "super" featherweight champion, has yet to respond to WBC titleholder Russell's threat.
But with Russell resorting to these kind of extreme lengths to try to bait Santa Cruz into a unification bout, we should get an answer soon.
Both champions tout one loss apiece on their respective ledgers, with Santa Cruz having lost to Carl Frampton in July 2016 before avenging the defeat in January 2017 and Russell having lost a majority decision to Vasiliy Lomachenko in June 2014.
