Pitbull Cruz Knocks Out Foul-Prone Nestor Bravo, Then Calls Out Ryan Garcia

Isaac "Pitbull" Cruz kept his WBC interim super lightweight title on Saturday, September 19, at Pechanga Arena in San Diego. Nestor Bravo spent much of the night holding and fouling, and Cruz knocked him out with a left hook in the sixth round. Within minutes Cruz had called out Ryan Garcia, and Garcia answered just as fast.

A Saturday Night in San Diego

The card was streamed on DAZN, and on paper the main event pitted two punchers against each other. Cruz came in at 28-3-2 and Bravo at 24-1 with 17 knockouts, and pre-fight coverage had both men promising an all-action fight. What the crowd actually got was one man trying to fight and the other trying to survive the fight by hanging on.

Referee Thomas Taylor was the third man in the ring. Several outlets later reported that he spent a good part of the evening separating the two fighters and lecturing the challenger.

An Early Knockdown and a Pattern of Fouls

Cruz drew first blood in the opening round with a hook that put Bravo on the floor. From then on Bravo kept tying him up. In the second round Taylor took a point from Bravo for excessive holding. Reports differ on how many times Bravo went down early on. Boxing 24/7 and BoxingNews24 both describe a second knockdown in the first two rounds, while The Sporting Tribune's report, carried by Yahoo Sports, lists only the knockdowns in rounds one and six.

The fouls continued. Yahoo Sports' round-by-round coverage noted low blows in the middle rounds. In the fourth Bravo threw Cruz to the canvas and lost a second point. Most accounts give that wrestling move as the reason for the deduction, though one report attributes it to a low blow. Taylor then warned the challenger that further infractions could get him disqualified and cost him his purse.

The Left Hook That Ended It

Cruz never let the mauling pull him off his plan. Coverage of the sixth round describes him feinting to draw a reaction and then landing a clean lead left hook on the chin. Bravo ended up sitting on the canvas, showed little interest in getting up, and the fight was waved off at 1:30 of the round. Because Cruz had controlled the action throughout, the scorecards at the stoppage hardly mattered.

The win took Cruz to 29-3-2 with 19 knockouts and, per Yahoo Sports, was the second successful defence of his interim belt. Bravo fell to 24-2.

"Hey Ryan, I Am Here"

Cruz used his post-fight interview to call for a fight with Garcia. "Hey Ryan, I am here! My next fight. Come on!" he said, as reported by The Sporting Tribune. The same report says Cruz also mentioned the winner of the WBC super lightweight title fight between champion Dalton Smith and Alberto Puello as a possible next opponent. That fight is set for Sheffield on October 24.

Garcia came into the conversation with momentum of his own. One week earlier, on September 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, he had stopped Conor Benn in the second round to win the WBC welterweight title. According to Yahoo Sports, he replied to Cruz on social media almost immediately and floated a date in December, writing that after taming a lion he was not too worried about a pit bull.

What Comes Next

Nothing had been signed when this report was written. A Garcia fight would put Cruz in the year's biggest spotlight, but it would also raise the question of weight, since Garcia now holds a belt at 147 pounds and Cruz's title is at 140. The more direct route to a full world title runs through the Smith-Puello winner. Either way, the San Diego result keeps Cruz in the mix for both options, and he kept punching cleanly on a night when his opponent seemed to want anything but a straight fight.

Elsewhere on the card, Daniel Blancas stopped Sergio Jimenez in the seventh round at super middleweight, Marco Verde beat Guillermo Hernandez inside five rounds at middleweight, and Eumir Marcial stopped Omar Ulises Huerta in the third.

Sources

• Pitbull Cruz stops Nestor Bravo in six to retain interim title in San Diego, The Sporting Tribune via Yahoo Sports, 20 September 2026
• Isaac 'Pitbull' Cruz KOs Nestor Bravo in ugly, foul-ridden contest to retain WBC interim title (live coverage), Yahoo Sports, 19-20 September 2026
• Isaac Cruz Crushes Nestor Bravo In Six, Boxing 24/7, 19 September 2026
• Isaac Cruz vs Nestor Bravo: Live Scorecard And Results, BoxingNews24, 19 September 2026
• Boxing stock watch: September's biggest winners and losers, Yahoo Sports, 30 September 2026
• Boxing schedule, ESPN, accessed 3 October 2026