When featherweight contender Orlando Cruz steps into the ring on Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Centre in Las Vegas to do battle for the vacant WBO featherweight title against Orlando Salido, he will so as an openly gay man in a sport in which the warrior heart and masculine virtues necessary to be a fighter are still widely considered the antithesis of any sexual orientation other than heterosexual.

When he originally came out, the Puerto Rican said: “I have and will always be a proud Puerto Rican. I have always been and always will be a proud gay man.”

A simple statement yet one that has ensured him a place in the history of the sport, one that will undoubtedly outlast anything he will achieve in the ring.