By Sam Volz: On December 3rd, Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez and Juan Francisco Estrada will be battling for the now-vacant WBC super flyweight title that was vacated by Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez this week.
Chocolatito (51-3, 41 KOs) and WBC franchise super flyweight champion Estrada (43-3, 28 KOs) will meet for the third time on December 3rd on DAZN at the Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
Estrada, 32, defeated Chocolatito in their rematch last year in March by a highly controversial 12 round split decision in Dallas, Texas.
Despite Chocolatito appearing to beat Estrada by an even more one-sided decision than in their first meeting in 2012, two of the judges shockingly scored it for Juan Francisco. The fans at ringside at the American Airlines Center loudly booed the decision, showing their unhappiness with the scoring of the fight.
The judges that gave the fight to Estrada scored it 117-111 and 115-113. Not surprisingly, there was a huge backlash over the fight’s results from the boxing public, particularly over the judge that scored it wide for Estrada at 117-111. Getting it wrong is one thing, but to be that far off is sad.
Chocolatito threw over 1000 punches in the fight, with many of them connecting cleanly. In Estrada’s recent tune-up fight against little-known Argi Cortesz last September, he looked like a shell of the fighter that had fought Chocolatito a year ago.
Estrada beat Cortesz by a narrow 12 round unanimous decision with the scores of 15-112, 114-113, and 115-112.
Given how poor Juan Francisco looked in that fight, you’ve got to assume that the punishment that Chocolatito inflicted on him last year took what’s left of the 32-year-old, leaving the badly deteriorated version that Argi Cortesz came close to beating.
Did Bam Rodrigez duck Chocolatito?
In a predictable move, Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez (17-0, 11 KOs) chose to vacate his WBC 115-lb belt to move down to 112-lb rather than defend the belt against the highly accomplished former four-division world champion Chocolatito Gonzalez.
Although the official reason for ‘Bam’ Rodriguez to vacate his WBC belt was because he wants to move down to 112 to pick up some belts, many boxing fans aren’t buying that excuse.
They believe Bam saw the writing on the wall, recognizing that he’s not good enough to beat Chocolatito or even compete with him. Those suspicions were confirmed by a lot of people when they witnessed Bam Rodriguez struggle against Israel Gonzalez, squeaking by him with a narrow 12 round decision.
