Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez faced each other for the third time of their career as Super Flyweights. Since the WBC Super Flyweight was vacant for the fight, Estrada won the title for the second time after beating Gonzalez by majority decision. The WBC title was left vacant following Estrada’s promotion to franchise status. Estrada also retained The Ring title after it was made available for his fight with Gonzalez. The championship bout was held at the Desert Diamond Arena in Arizona on December 3rd. The judges’ scorecards of 116-112, 115-113 and a 114-114 reflected the closeness of the match
With Roman Gonzalez winning the first fight between him and Juan Francisco Estrada a decade ago in 2012, and Estrada winning the second match between them in 2021, this bout was perhaps the most pivotal when it came to determining who was the best between them.
The bout was very evenly-matched; both fighters sought the advantage early and switched forth between being the aggressor and defender. While Estrada is known to usually come forward, Gonzalez frequently adopted the same style of fighting, making for a spectacle for the fans from start to finish. Estrada seemed to control the fight in the first half of the fight, but in the four rounds leading up to the championship rounds, Gonzalez seemed to dedicate himself more towards coming forward and proved to be successful.
For a decent portion of the match, it was clear that Estrada struggled to deal with Gonzalez’ approach as he was forced on the back foot which was something Estrada was clearly not accustomed to. Estrada took a lot of punches as a result, but in a display of toughness he managed to take them all to eventually rally in the championship rounds where he put on a more dominant display as opposed to earlier, despite being pressured throughout most of those rounds.
With the judges scoring the fight a majority decision win in favor of Estrada, the two closed off an entertaining night that featured few clinches, and a lot of thrown and landed punches. With Estrada reconquering the belt he had vacated a year or so earlier, he may be poised to defend it against the winner of the Pedro Guevara (39-3-1, 22 KO’s) vs. Andrew Moloney (25-2, 16 KO’s) fight which had been ordered by the WBC not too long ago.
Chocolatito – 35 – is not entirely done after his second loss to Estrada. He showed himself to be in prime condition and form – despite his age – and with three other champions present in the division, he can go in any direction to win a world title for himself given he’s firmly entrenched in the top 10 rankings of the different governing bodies.
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