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Juan Francisco Estrada admits he wasn’t sure what Michael Buffer would announce as he read the scores Saturday night.
Estrada doesn’t think Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez did enough to beat him in their 12-round, 115-pound title unification fight. The WBA/WBC super flyweight champion wouldn’t have been surprised, though, if their back-and-forth fight would’ve resulted in a draw.
Mexico’s Estrada (42-3, 28 KOs) won their rematch by split decision.
Judges Carlos Sucre (117-111) and David Sutherland (115-113) scored nine and seven rounds, respectively, for Estrada. Judge Jesse Reyes gave Gonzalez seven rounds (115-113) in an action-packed main event at American Airlines Center in Dallas.
“It was a good fight,” Estrada said during a post-fight press conference. “We waited almost nine years for that fight. I’m really happy with the result. I told my trainer when the fight was over that it was a hard fight and I thought maybe it would be a draw. But it went my way and now we can look forward to a trilogy. I know I have a mandatory fight with Rungvisai, and after that, we can probably close the year out with a trilogy fight.”
There was a lot of debate about the outcome on social media, especially regarding Sucre’s scorecard.
CompuBox credited Nicaragua’s Gonzalez (50-3, 41 KOs) for landing 74 more punches overall than Estrada (391-of-1,317 to 314-of-1,212). According to CompuBox, Gonzalez connected with more power punches (352-297) and more jabs (39-17).
“Like I said, it was a good fight,” Estrada said. “Before the decision [was announced], I thought maybe it would be a draw. But I never thought that it would be a loss. And thank God it went my way. But it doesn’t bother me that people see it that way [that I lost]. He has a lot of support in Nicaragua, and he has a lot of support in Mexico as well. And I knew that I was able to win that fight.”
Estrada avenged a 12-round, unanimous-decision defeat to Gonzalez in November 2012 in Los Angeles. Their first fight was contested in the 108-pound division, for Gonzalez’s WBA light flyweight title, two weight classes below where they fought Saturday night.
The 30-year-old Estrada is obligated to make a mandatory defense of his WBC championship next against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. Estrada defeated Thailand’s Sor Rungvisai (50-5-1, 43 KOs) by unanimous decision in their 12-round rematch in April 2019 at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.