Isaac Cruz Remains Champion After Majority Draw With Lamont Roach, as ESPN Reports
Andreas Hale, Dec 7, 2025
Lamont Roach Jr. and Isaac Cruz fought to a majority draw at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, leaving Cruz with his WBC interim junior welterweight title intact and Roach with another majority draw in as many bouts this year.
Judges scored the bout 115-111 for Cruz on one card, while the other two juries had it 113-113, signaling a fierce, closely contested affair from start to finish.
Cruz began with pressure, scoring a third-round knockdown that briefly tilted the momentum his way. Roach altered his strategy after the knockdown, taking charge in the second half of the fight. Yet the late surge wasn’t enough to hand Roach a win, keeping him without a victory in his last two outings.
After the final bell, Roach vented his frustration, insisting he deserved the win.
"All I want is a fair shake, man. That’s it," Roach said. "I think I pulled that fight out. ... I don’t know what else I have to do. We’ll go back to the drawing board. I don’t accept this at all. I believed I won a close fight, and I’m tired of this."
Roach, fighting out of Washington, D.C., entered the bout with a record of 25-1-3 (10 KOs). He had just been in a controversial majority draw with Gervonta Davis in March. With no immediate rematch in sight, Roach moved up to 140 pounds to challenge Cruz after Roach was stripped of his WBA super lightweight title when the bell rang.
Cruz, who previously challenged Davis in a 2021 decision loss, had won six of his seven prior bouts and captured the vacant WBC interim junior welterweight title by defeating Omar Salcido in his previous appearance.
From the opening bell, Cruz pressed forward with looping combinations, delivering relentless offense. Roach found moments to counter, especially with that left hand, and attempted to operate from the outside. Cruz pushed ahead with intention, while Roach began boxing more selectively as the rounds progressed.
A telling moment occurred in Round 3 when Cruz landed a left that sent Roach off balance and to the canvas for the first knockdown of Roach’s career. Roach absorbed the hit without lasting damage, but the moment reshaped the fight’s dynamics.
"I knew he’d stand his ground and trade, and I did, too. I can box when I need to, which is something some people don’t realize," Cruz explained after the fight. "I boxed when it made sense."
Roach adjusted by moving into close quarters in the mid rounds, engaging in heated exchanges on the inside. Cruz worked the body effectively, while Roach countered with sharp returns. A Round 6 left hook from Roach proved his best moment to that point, though Roach remained committed to fighting on Cruz’s terms instead of using his height and reach to box from the outside.
In the middle rounds, Roach switched to a catch-and-shoot approach, baiting Cruz into exchanges. The tactic paid dividends, catching Cruz on the way in and out and shifting the fight’s balance. A point deduction for excessive clinching against Cruz in Round 7 briefly leveled things and offset the earlier knockdown. The shift helped Roach gain control and dampen Cruz’s bursts, even as the crowd grew quieter.
Yet Cruz found life in the championship rounds, intensifying his pressure and testing Roach in the later moments of the bout.
It all culminated in a razor-thin result: a draw that felt unsatisfying to both sides despite Roach outlanding Cruz 191-159. Both men signaled interest in a rematch, though Cruz stipulated a different referee would be required.
"Yeah, I definitely want the rematch—just with a different referee and without the referee’s bias. I won this fight, and I feel the referee took it from me," Cruz stated.
In the night’s co-main event, O'Shaquie Foster dominated Stephen Fulton to capture the WBC interim lightweight title via unanimous decision. The bout had been initially set as Foster’s opportunity to defend the WBC junior lightweight crown, but Fulton arrived two pounds overweight. The sanctioning body changed the stakes to an interim title fight at 135 pounds, making the winner the mandatory challenger for the victor of next month’s Teofimo Lopez–Shakur Stevenson bout.
Foster—now 24-3 with 12 KOs—displayed outstanding control, keeping Fulton at bay with a precise jab and effective movement. Fulton, who entered 23-2 with 8 KOs, struggled to find a way inside as Foster orchestrated the pace from the center of the ring. As the rounds wore on, Fulton’s frustration grew while Foster continued to pour on the offense behind the jab.
Judges’ scores of 117-111, 118-110, and 119-109 reflected Foster’s dominant performance, though there was occasional debate about whether it could have been scored more decisively as a shutout.
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