Estrada Out to Beat Gonzalez Again

It’s been an exciting year for boxing fans and a potentially thrilling fight is being left until the final month of the year. Juan Francisco Estrada (offer with BetMGM sportsbook in New York at+150) takes on Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez on December 3 in a trilogy bout with the Ring magazine super flyweight title on the line.

Estrada currently holds the WBA world super flyweight title and he’ll be looking to get another win over his great rival.

It’s 14 years since Estrada made his professional debut and coming into this fight, he has a record of 43 wins and three losses. He was unbeaten in his first 18 fights before being beaten by Juan Carlos Sanchez Jr. That’s a loss which was avenged just six months later.

At that time Estrada was campaigning in the light flyweight division but that was soon to change. He moved up a weight after failing to take the WBA light flyweight title from Roman Gonzalez. It proved to be the right decision to make as his next fight saw him beating Brian Viloria to become the WBA and WBO flyweight champion.

Estrada has lost three professional fights and avenged all of them. Could we be in for another trilogy in 2023? Four years ago, when Estrada moved up to super flyweight, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai beat him but 14 months later, Estrada won the rematch to become the WBC super flyweight title holder.

March 2021 saw revenge on Gonzalez but it was a controversial points win. One judge gave the fight to Gonzalez by two points but the other two had Estrada the winner by six and two points respectively. All that controversy fuels the fires for this trilogy match on December 3.

Although both of the bouts between these two fighters have gone the distance, Estrada has to be wary of the punching power of his opponent. Gonzalez has 41 inside the distance wins in his career.

His first world title came in the minimum weight division, winning the WBA title. 2014 saw him move up to flyweight and win the Ring and WBC titles. Two years later, Gonzalez was in the super flyweight division and won the WBC title.

It’s not just Estrada who might fancy a trilogy fight with Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. Gonzalez has more reason to want that fight as he lost to Runvisai twice in 2017, including a fourth round knockout.

He wasn’t without a belt for long though. Two fights later he became the WBA super flyweight champion. That earned him the rematch with Estrada but he couldn’t repeat that previous win.

A trilogy bout was due to take place earlier this year but Estrada had COVID-19. Instead, Gonzalez beat Julio Caesar Martinez to win the WBC Diamond super flyweight title. Strangely, the supervisor for that fight was called Jill Diamond.

Now comes this third bout between Estrada and Gonzalez. It’s a fight that could go either way, though the more recent win for Estrada makes him the slight favorite. With the new WBC title holder Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez calling out the winner, an exciting time in the super flyweight division is on the way.