By Dan Ambrose: Juan Francisco Estrada (36-3, 25 KOs) says he should have been given the victory over WBC super flyweight champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (44-4-1, 31 KOs) in their SuperFly2 fight on Saturday night at The forum in Inglewood, California.
Estrada lost the fight by a 12 round majority decision. Estrada doesn’t agree with the decision at all. He points out that the boxing fans at ringside booed the decision when it was announced, and he feels that means he should have been given the win. However, the boxing fans that saw the fight live at The Forum were predominately favoring Estrada.
That was clear from the 1st round when they cheered Estrada each time he would land a shot, and they would remain quiet when Rungvisai would connect with a punch.
The judges scored the Rungvisai vs. Estrada fight as follows:
• 115-113 for Rungvisai
• 117-111 for Rungvisai
• 114-114 – draw
Rungvisai landed a high amount of big body shots in the fight. Estrada was moving around constantly to keep from getting hit to the head, but it didn’t save him from getting hit to the body by Rungvisai. After 6 rounds, Rungvisai was up 5 rounds to 1 by HBO. I had Rungvisai winning the first 6 rounds. The 2nd round wasn’t conclusive enough to give the round to Estrada, as he only landed shots in the last part of the round.
Estrada fought really well in round 12. He had Rungvisai hurt and looking wear after nailing him with some big punches to the head. Rungvisai looked woozy in fighting back. He kept throwing punches, but he had nothing on his shots. Estrada fought well enough to edge rounds 2 and 8. Those were still close rounds in which Rungvisai landed the harder shots, and the same amount of punches as Estrada. The difference is the punches that Estrada landed were cheered loudly by the boxing fans, and that likely led the judges to give him those rounds when they could have easily given them to Rungvisai.
”The people are the judges, and you can hear them,” Estrada said after the fight. ”They saw me win and I thought I won without a doubt. If the judges saw it that way, then that’s what it is, but I feel I won the majority of the rounds. The people saw what happened,” Estrada continued.
Estrada is wrong. The people aren’t the judges, especially when the venue favors one fighter over the other. Staging the fight in Inglewood meant that the crowd that showed up would be backing Estrada, not Rungvisai. Having a pro-Estrada crowd doesn’t mean he should have been given the win under any circumstance. That’s not how boxing matches are decided. If they were, fighters that fought in their own hometown would rarely lose their fights.
”Yes, no doubt or I’ll fight any other champion,” Estrada said when asked if he’d like to fight a rematch with Rungvisai.
Estrada should think hard about whether he wants to fight Rungvisai again, because I think it could end badly for him with him suffering a second defeat. Estrada doesn’t need to have 2 consecutive losses to Rungvisai like Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez has. That would be bad news for Estrada’s boxing career. He needs to make sure he’s fighting guys he has a good chance of beating. Estrada was too weak to get the better of Rungvisai in most of the rounds of the fight. The only round that Estrada won without a doubt was the 12th. Rounds 2, 8 and 10, which HBO unofficial scorer Harold Lederman gave to Estrada, were rounds where Rungvisai landed just as many power shots as Estrada did, but his were harder. Estrada’s fans were making a lot of noise in those rounds, and that was probably what caused the judges to score the rounds to him. because he didn’t appear to win them conclusively.
”Estrada is a very good fighter,” Rungvisai said. ”He was a strong fighter. I have the style of boxing and it was a tough fight. More importantly, I want to bring the belt back to Thailand. I’m very thankful to the American people. I’m here to fight for Thailand. I’ll fight anybody at 115, and I’ll fight Estrada again,” Rungvisai said.
HBO Boxing might want Rungvisai to face McWilliams Arroyo (17-3, 14 KOs) next rather than seeing a Rungvisai-Estrada rematch right away. Arroyo would be a good option for Rungvisai, as would Carlos Cuadras, Donnie Netes, Diago Higa, Jonas Sultan, Artem Dalakian, Khalid Yafai or Jerwin Ancajas. It woul be good for the boxing fans to see Rungvisai fighting different guys each time instead of having his career get bogged down with him fighting the same guy in needless rematches. Estrada needs to prove himself worthy of a rematch with Rungvisai, because he clearly lost the fight.
Estrada should go after Ancajas or Yafai for a world title in his next fight, as I think he would have a much better chance of beating either of those guys than Rungivisai, who is just too powerful for him.
