By Miguel Rivera
Although he acknowledged that he missed more shots in the first half of the contest, Mexico's Juan Francisco Estrada is convinced that he beat Srisaket Sor Rungvisai of Thailand on Saturday night at The Forum in Los Angeles, California.
Sor Rungvisai retained his World Boxing Council title by holding off Estrada in the second half of the fight to walk away with a close twelve round majority decision win.
The champion, who improved to 45-4-1 with 40 knockouts, won by a score of 117-111 on one judge’s card. Another judge had him winning 115-113 and Las Vegas judge Dave Moretti scored it a draw, 114-114.
The outcome does not sit very well with Estrada, who is now demanding a rematch in the near future.
There will be some consideration to stage a rematch win the fall, as part of a potential Superfly 3 card.
Sor Rungvisai established himself as one of the best fighters in the sport after beating Estrada, and last year he pulled off back to back victory over Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez - who at the time was considered to be the best pound-for-pound fighter in boxing. In their fall rematch, the Thai fighter knocked out Gonzalez in four brutal rounds.
But Estrada felt is victory was so clear that everyone - other than the judges - scored him as the winner.
"I think I won the fight, I hope they give me a rematch so I can demonstrate that I should have had the victory, since the judges gave it to him. I think they handed in a bad decision. The best judge of what happened are the people and they saw me win," Estrada said.
"The only ones who saw Sor Rungvisai win were the judges. For me, the fight was stolen. I'm going forward to do great things and hopefully they give me the opportunity to fight him or any other champion."
