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For Jose Luis “Güero” Sanchez, his scheduled fight Saturday against Eric Tudor is a Golden Boy opportunity.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. And, as always, truth is the best defense.
Sanchez’s eight-round junior-middleweight bout against Tudor (9-0, six KOs) in Las Vegas, Nevada, is the first of a three-fight deal for the Albuquerque boxer with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. It’s a launchpad that could lift Sanchez’s career to a new and more profitable level.
This opportunity, Sanchez believes, was earned throughout the arc of his 11-year pro career.
“It’s a little bit of everything,” Sanchez (13-3-1, four KOs) said on Tuesday during an interview at Sanchez Brothers boxing on Old Coors SW. “I’ve fought tough guys and came up short, but they were good fights. And my last fight I won, and it was for a WBC/NABF title.
“That put me out there, and I believe the promoters and stuff, the matchmakers, they’ve been seeing me, so that got me the opportunity with Golden Boy.”
If Golden Boy matchmakers saw that most recent fight in Odessa, Texas, they saw Sanchez dominate a previously unbeaten fighter in Rashad Shahid. Sanchez dropped the San Diego fighter, then 10-0, twice en route to a victory by lopsided unanimous decision on May 13.
On Feb. 24 in Rio Rancho, Sanchez outboxed Michigan’s Reggie Harris Jr., winning by majority decision.
Even Sanchez’s two most recent defeats were impressive, considering the opposition. He went 14 hard rounds in those bouts with Xander Zayas and Jahi Tucker, two of promoter Top Rank’s most prized prospects, and was still upright after the final bell.
The Zayas fight in particular, Sanchez said, convinced him he can stand in with virtually anyone in the 147- or 154-pound weight classes.
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Zayas is now 17-0 with 11 KOs.
Tudor, a 21-year-old Floridian and a Golden Boy contract fighter, has an impressive-enough résumé — but one that doesn’t compare with that of Zayas.
“He’s a tough guy,” Sanchez said of Tudor, “… but I don’t think he’s as tough as the other guys I’ve fought. I don’t think he’s as strong as Zayas. I think it’s a really good opportunity for me.”
After fighting Tudor at 154 pounds, Sanchez said, the agreement with Golden Boy calls for the next two fights on the contract to be at 147 pounds. If he beats Tudor, he said, fight No. 2 on the deal will be a 10-rounder.
Having been denied one opportunity — the chance to defend the NABF junior-welterweight title he’d won against Shahid — Sanchez is eager to embrace this one.
“I was supposed to defend my title with (promoters in Texas) … but they stopped answering calls, texts,” he said. “… That’s why we decided to move forward and take this fight at 154 with a different promoter.”
Sanchez, 30, has eight more fights and 61 more rounds of pro experience than Tudor. The young Florida boxer’s amateur résumé is impressive but not overly so.
Tudor’s knockout ratio suggests he has a power advantage; Tudor dropped Harris, the only opponent he and Sanchez have in common, in the first round en route to a win by unanimous decision.
Sanchez, though, has been knocked down only once in his pro career — in his pro debut against Guy Youell in June 2012. Sanchez responded by flooring Youell three times in winning by fourth-round TKO.
Whatever the outcome Saturday, Sanchez said, the fans watching at the Cosmopolitan and on DAZN can expect to be entertained.
“(Tudor) likes to stay (inside), and I like to stay in there,” he said. “So it should be a good fight.”
