Francisco Tomas da Cruz: Career and Chavez Challenge
Francisco Tomas da Cruz was a Brazilian professional boxer whose international schedule included a WBC super-featherweight championship challenge against Julio Cesar Chavez. His compiled record lists forty-eight victories and twenty-one defeats across sixty-nine contests, with recorded activity extending from December 1982 to July 2001. His opponents included several established champions and future titleholders.
Career and championship record
The Chavez contest took place at the Plaza de Toros de Nimes in France on April 18, 1987. Chavez retained the WBC championship by technical knockout at two minutes and thirty-one seconds of the third round. Rudy Ortega refereed the scheduled twelve-round contest. The bout record identifies it as Chavez’s eighth successful defense of that championship.
All three recorded judges had Chavez ahead 20–17 after two rounds. Sid Nathan, Harry Gibbs and Louis Michel each returned that same interim total. The contest ended in the next round, so there was no final decision and no transfer of the title. Da Cruz’s role in this meeting was that of the unsuccessful Brazilian challenger.
His overseas schedule continued after Nimes. Barry McGuigan stopped him at Kenilworth Road in Luton on June 25, 1988. Later that year, Micky Ward defeated him in Atlantic City. Further stoppage defeats came against Loreto Garza in Sacramento and Renato Cornett in Sydney during 1989, taking da Cruz to several different national boxing circuits.
Da Cruz also faced Miguel Angel Gonzalez in Mexico City in May 1992. His later Brazilian schedule included two meetings with Roger Benito Flores during 1995: a points defeat in Osasco followed by a points victory in Salvador. Those separate results show why the opponent and location matter when summarizing repeated meetings rather than treating a rivalry as a single contest.
In 1998 he lost to Dennis Holbaek Pedersen in Denmark and Acelino Freitas in Sao Paulo. The final entry in the compiled ledger is a technical-knockout defeat against Isak Tavares in Araras on July 28, 2001. Together, these documented contests place his world-title opportunity within a substantially longer professional career, including both domestic appearances and repeated assignments abroad.
Sources
Additional sources: https://boxerlist.com/boxer/francisco-tomas-da-cruz/7350
Additional sources: https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1987/04/18/Julio-Cesar-Chavez-stopped-Francisco-Tomas-da-Cruz-231/9052545716800/; https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Julio_Cesar_Chavez_vs._Francisco_Tomas_Da_Cruz
