It was a blue-collar promise from a blue-collar boxer.
Andrew Cancio, a former junior lightweight champion who works for the gas company when he isn’t in the ring, said he’d be back after Golden Boy fired him three days before Thanksgiving, just a few days after he lost his title and ripped the promotional company.
Cancio is back, fulfilling a promise the way he completes a job.
Top Rank signed him Thursday.
In announcing the multi-fight deal, Top Rank, miraculously, didn’t mention Golden Boy.
“He was a free agent, miraculously, and we didn’t hesitate to make a deal with him and his team,” Top Rank’s Bob Arum said in a statement.
Miracles happen. So, too, does some subtle trash talk.
There’s nothing subtle about Cancio’s power or his working-man appeal. He is the West Coast’s version of Joe Smith Jr., a Long Island, New York laborer when he isn’t knocking Bernard Hopkins out of the ring or beating Jesse Hart.
Cancio (21-5-2, 16 KOs), who is from the Colorado River town of Blythe, California, stunned Alberto Machado last February, knocking him out in four rounds for a 130-pound belt. In a rematch four months later, he needed only three rounds to stop Machado.
On November 23, however, Cancio’s championship run came to an abrupt end. Rene Alvarado of Nicaragua knocked him out in seven rounds. He had knocked out Alvarado in December 2015
“I’m very grateful to begin the next chapter of my career with Bob Arum and the entire Top Rank team,” said Cancio, who criticized Golden Boy in a Los Angeles Times’ story for not promoting his blue-collar roots with appearances on bigger cards. “I look forward to returning to the ring in front of my army of supporters and am fully prepared to fight my way towards becoming a world champion again.’’
Cancio is expected to make his first appearance for Top Rank in April on ESPN. He provides another matchmaking possibility for Top Rank’s other junior lightweights, including Miguel Berchelt (honorable mention pound-for-pound), Jamel Herring, Oscar Valdez Jr., Carl Frampton and Masayuki Ito.