Juan Francisco Estrada entered this fight week with even more confidence than usual.
The WBC super flyweight champion has already avenged two of his three professional defeats. Estrada will get his opportunity to go 3-for-3 in rematches with opponents who’ve beaten him when he squares off against Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez on Saturday night.
Gonzalez got knocked out by Thai southpaw Srisaket Sor Rungvisai in the fourth round of his most recent rematch.
“I feel like the [Gonzalez] rematch is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life,” Estrada said. “I have three losses. I already avenged two of them, and this is the last one. I’ve always said that I show up in rematches.”
In his most recent rematch against an opponent who beat him, Estrada defeated Sor Rungvisai by unanimous decision in April 2019. Mexico’s Estrada (41-3, 28 KOs) took the WBC 115-pound championship Sor Rungvisai won from Gonzalez two years earlier by winning that 12-rounder at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
Sor Rungvisai beat Estrada by majority decision in their first 12-round, 115-pound championship match in February 2018, also at The Forum. The 30-year-old Estrada will have to face Sor Rungvisai a third time if he beats Gonzalez on Saturday night.
Sor Rungvisai (49-5-1, 42 KOs), the WBC’s mandatory challenger for Estrada’s title, is heavily favored over another Thai veteran, Kwanthai Sithmorseng (50-7-1, 27 KOs), in a 10-round tune-up fight Friday night in Bang Phun, Thailand (DAZN; 9:30 p.m. ET).
Seven years before he avenged his loss to Sor Rungvisai, Estrada stopped Mexico’s Juan Carlos Sanchez Jr. (then 14-1-1) in the 10th round of their December 2011 rematch in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico. Sanchez dealt Estrada his first professional defeat, an eight-round, unanimous-decision loss, in May 2011 in Los Mochis, Mexico.
In his most recent fight, Estrada stopped countryman Carlos Cuadras (39-4-1, 27 KOs) in the 11th round of their rematch October 23 in Mexico City. Estrada edged Cuadras by one point on all three scorecards when they first fought in September 2017 at StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Cuadras dropped Estrada in the third round of their second bout, but Estrada recovered and came on strong in the second half of their 12-round title fight. He knocked Cuadras to the canvas twice in the 11th round on his way to becoming the first foe to beat Cuadras by knockout.
Estrada and Nicaragua’s Gonzalez (50-2, 41 KOs) will fight for Estrada’s WBC and Gonzalez’s WBA super flyweight titles in DAZN’s main event Saturday night at American Airlines Center in Dallas (8 p.m. ET). Gonzalez dealt Estrada the second defeat of his career in November 2012, when Gonzalez won a 12-round unanimous decision in their fight for Gonzalez’s WBA light flyweight title at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.
“I’m really happy to be in this rematch after eight or nine years of waiting,” Estrada said. “I really feel like I am fighting for my world title for the first time, being a world champion in a unification fight. It’s going to be a fight that history will remember.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
