In the US, an experienced Cuban boxer takes his first professional steps

When the timer went off to begin round 3, Andy Cruz chased Rostyslav Sabadash with a hard punch.

Sabadash, taller and bulkier, leaned back. Cruz, a Cuban boxer who had won the lightweight gold medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, slammed him with two more long left hands.

Cruz is one of the most talented fighters to ever emerge from Cuba’s celebrated boxing program. Along with his Olympic gold, he holds three amateur world titles and has won twice at the Pan American Games. But in mid-May, Cruz arrived in Northeast Philadelphia to learn how to box like a pro: He’ll make his professional debut in Detroit on July 15, in a 10-round bout against a rugged veteran named Juan Carlos Burgos.

Cruz broke off two more punches, then a cross to the right. Cruz’s manager, Yolfri Sánchez, watched the sparring session from ringside. His head coach, Derek Ennis – nicknamed Bozy – sat on the platform. Sánchez hired Ennis to replace Cruz’s amateur habits with professional techniques: hitting with authority, staying in range, catching and countering punches.

Another Cruz right hand began a heated exchange of blows. Ennis kept his gym’s new star in check.

“That’s not what you want to do,” Ennis said. “Someone taller than you, don’t stand there and bang him. Be smart.”

Cruz’s boxing IQ, along with his speed and timing, helped make him the boxer many observers consider the best Cuban of his generation. A feud with Cuba’s boxing federation led to him leaving the country last year, making Cruz boxing’s hottest free agent — and its most intriguing prospect.

In May, Cruz signed a three-year deal with Matchroom Boxing that will guarantee him seven-figure pay, and Cruz’s backers believe he will dominate the talented lightweight division next summer. But professional success will depend on how well Cruz adapts, both to his new country and to a new version of a familiar sport.

“Training is going well, but I have to fight,” he said in Spanish after the sparring session. “I’m anxious. I’m enthusiastic. I like to work under pressure. That’s when you get the best out of me.”

Cruz speaks little English and Ennis speaks even less Spanish. Sánchez translates, and so do their smartphones. But Cruz is fluent in boxing. The boxing database BoxRec credits him 140 amateur victories. He immediately acted on Ennis’s advice.

Hinge. Right cross. Top cut.

Both punches connected.

“That is it!” shouted Sánchez in Spanish.

Cruz first came to prominence in the United States in July 2021 when he danced in the ring to celebrate his Olympic gold medal while the silver medalist, Keyshawn Davis of the United States, stood in front of a TV camera. The rapper Snoop Dogg and the comedian Kevin Hart parodied the laughing moment in a much-watched music videobut boxing enthusiasts focused on the result.

Davis was a highly regarded amateur and is currently one fast rising lightweight prospect, and Cruz had outclassed him – and not for the first time. Cruz is 4-0 against Davis.

“I had never seen anything like it,” said Matchroom Sport chairman Eddie Hearn. “I know it sounds cheesy, but it was like watching an artist draw a painting. I was mesmerized by the ease with which he beat the best amateurs in the world. I never really expected to sign him because you don’t really expect Cuban fighters to go pro.”

A spear thrower, Yiselena Ballar Rojas, left the national team last summer during a stopover in Miami en route to the World Championships in Athletics in Eugene, Ore. And Yaimé Pérez, the bronze medalist in the discus throw at the Tokyo Olympics, left the team in Miami after the World Cup.

And boxer Yoenlis Hernández, the only Cuban to win gold at the amateur world championships in May, left the team on his way home from that tournament, slipping away during a layover in Panama.

For his part, Cruz claims he would have stayed in Cuba had he not been banned from the pro team.

“It disappointed me a lot,” said Cruz, who will turn 28 in August. “I wanted to leave, one way or another.”

As part of a risky plot to leave Cuba by boat, Cruz traveled from his home in Matanzas, 65 miles east of Havana, to Moa, a coastal town in the eastern province of Holguín, last June. He dozed off in the house of the man who had organized the trip and woke up when police officers handcuffed him. After four days in custody, Cruz was allowed to return to Matanzas, but was permanently removed from Cuba’s national team and banned from the country’s boxing gyms.

For the next four months, training meant shadow boxing and running for an hour every afternoon. Cross-training meant playing pick-up football. Without his monthly stipend from the national team — 10,000 Cuban pesos, or about $400 — Cruz had little money.

With no income and boxing prospects that seemed far off, Cruz said he’d considered selling peanuts for a living. At least then he could earn money with his boxing success: if you have to choose between sellers, why not buy from the Olympic champion?

“I was a little worried that my door to leaving the country was closed and it would cost me my career,” Cruz said. “Those six months in Cuba were hell, in the sense that I wasn’t doing what I’m most passionate about, what I enjoy the most. That’s boxing.”

Speculation about Cruz’s future seeped through the summer, eventually reaching Sánchez, a baseball agent based in the Dominican Republic who specializes in Cuban prospects. Sánchez wanted the boxer to leave Cuba legally, and he worked with Cruz to arrange the necessary paperwork.

Last November, Cruz had a passport and a one-way plane ticket to Santo Domingo.

Cruz arrived on November 5, 2022, wearing a white Stephen Curry jersey and a big grin. He weighed 152 pounds, 17 over the lightweight limit of 135 pounds, but had lost some muscle since winning the Olympics.

“It was smaller than I imagined,” said Sánchez. “I thought he would be taller.”

From there, Cruz’s attorney in the United States worked on the visa Cruz would need to live and train in the country, while Sánchez and Jesse Rodriguez, his United States-based manager, negotiated with promoters. By early May, Cruz had secured both his visa and the promotion deal with Matchroom Boxing.

Cruz headed to Philadelphia, where he teams up with Ennis alongside the coach’s son, welterweight contender Jaron Ennis—boxing most afternoons, working on strength and conditioning most nights. When not working out, Cruz often parks in front of the television in the extended stay hotel room he shares with Sánchez and plays MLB The Show 23.

Cruz sent his mother a new iPhone during a trip Rodriguez made to Cuba. Cruz asked Rodriguez to return his Olympic gold medal and a container of crushed peanuts. He missed Cuban food, he said, but missed his family even more. The memorabilia would remind him of both.

“It’s the first time I’ve been this far from them,” he said of his parents, his brother and his 1-year-old son. “They were witnesses to everything that happened to me. They knew I had no choice but to leave.”

Cruz spent the last four rounds of his sparring session training a local hopeful named Angel Pizarro. Cruz is slimmer, stronger and 10 pounds lighter than when he left Cuba. After landing a sharp punch and a hard right hand, Pizarro smiled and nodded acknowledging Cruz’s new muscle.

“He’s a bully!” Pizarro shouted to the crowd around the ring.

Ennis said his goal was not to transform Cruz into a power puncher in the mold of Mike Tyson, but to add professional power to the speed and savvy that made Cruz a great amateur.

“I’m not taking anything away — I’m just adding, sharpening and teaching him my style,” Ennis said. “Catch the right hand, left hook. Rolling under shots, come back with the counter. That’s what I let him do.”

For his part, Hearn said Cruz was already equipped to take on the lightweight division’s elite, including Gervonta Davis, the ticket-selling knockout performer; Shakur Stevenson, the 2016 Olympic runner-up; and Devin Haney, the undisputed champion. A future matchup with Keyshawn Davis is a given – the two have snapped at each other about social media since last spring.

But up first is Burgos, a hardened gatekeeper whose 35-7-3 record also includes decision losses to Haney and Keyshawn Davis.

Where most professional debuts are scheduled for four or six rounds, Cruz’s fight against Burgos is contracted for 10. The length of the fight is proof that promoters and regulators already consider Cruz a veteran.

And it indicates that after several false starts, Cruz believes he can quickly rise to the top of professional boxing.

“I want to win all my fights – win all the tapes,” said Cruz. “I want to do what I did in amateur boxing. I’ve had a great career and I think I can repeat it.”