Staples Center, Los Angeles - For the WBA "regular" lightweight title, Gervonta Davis (26-0, 24 KOs) won a tougher than expected twelve round unanimous decision over a very durable Isaac Cruz (22-2-1, 15 KOs).

The scores were 116-112, 115-113, 115-113.

Cruz was pressing forward for nearly the entire fight, targeting the body of Davis from the start of the contest.

“That’s my style. ‘Pitbull’ is always going to be on the attack,” said Cruz. “I think we retained rhythm from the start to the end.”

Davis, who was facing the first opponent who was actually shorter than him, was landing a lot of big punches and uppercuts, but injured his left hand in the first half of the fight.

The injury forced Davis to make adjustments to his game plan.

Cruz took notice of the hand injury, which motivated him to up the tempo of the fight and continue targeting the body.

“It was right around the fifth round I saw that his hand wasn’t working correctly,” Cruz observed.

Although he lost the fight, Cruz raised his stock as a fighter and he felt that enough was done to walk away with the decision win.

“Viva Mexico. I have nothing to say, the fans are speaking on who won this fight,” Cruz said.

For Davis, it was the first time that he ever went the full twelve round distance. Prior to facing Cruz, Davis knocked out his last 16 opponents - dating back to a unanimous decision win in a six round fight in October of 2014 in the featherweight division.