Editorials

Juan Francisco Estrada: Mexico’s Finest Takes on Tyson Marquez

A rematch with Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez for Mexico’s Juan Francisco Estrada starts with a win over Tyson Marquez this weekend.

 

The best Mexican boxer in the world fights this weekend.

Pound-for-pound claimant Juan Francisco Estrada returns to his hometown of Sonora, Mexico to defend his WBA and WBO world flyweight belts against the raging former titleholder Hernan “Tyson” Marquez.

The two have been in talks about fighting before, years ago, but Marquez didn’t think Estrada was ready for him.

“When ‘Tyson’ was champion he did not give me a chance because according to him there was no match against me,” Estrada said per World Boxing News. “Now, I give him an opportunity to see whether he is on my level.”

“El Gallo” Estrada is the No. 7 ranked pound-for-pound boxer in the world by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, so not many are on his level anymore. He has demonstrated some of the finest offensive prowess in the sport against elite talent like Brian Viloria, Giovani Segura and Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, composing a record of 32-2 with 23 KOs—and all at just 25 years of age.

While his fight with Marquez guarantees action (all Marquez fights do), given how insanely stacked the current crop of flyweights is, this matchup was met with some minor criticism.

Marquez (39-5-1, 28 KOs), another Sonora native, is unranked by the TBRB and is as old as 27 can be in boxing. He has been stopped inside the distance four times including a KO loss to the aforementioned Segura in a savage war two years ago that saw Tyson forced out of the ring on a stretcher. His last fight, a “TKO” win over an unheralded Jose Alfredo Tirado (27-15), was stopped by the referee following a mere slip by Tirado in the eighth and final round.

But he lives up to his Tyson moniker and is as blistering a fighter as you can find in combat sports and is renowned throughout the fistic world for his firefights with Luis “El Nica” Concepcion in 2011 for the WBA-recognized flyweight strap.

And all four losses of his, save for the 10-round unanimous decision loss to Richie Mepranum in 2010 (avenged two years later), have come at the hands of top-notch men “The Hawaiian Punch” Viloria, Segura and McJoe Arroyo, a ranked super flyweight who makes up one half of the best brother combination in boxing.

Here are the details on what is assured to be Mexico’s latest melee:

 

When: September 26, 11:00 pm EST

Where: Centro Convenciones in Sonora, Mexico

TV: beIN Sports Español

 

Juan Francisco Estrada - Hernan Marquez - Zanfer

Estrada, dubbed “El Gallo” or “El Gallito” (Spanish for rooster), is a real specimen of a prizefighter, standing 5’4” and sporting a monster 66” reach—giving him six inches on Marquez this weekend and, for some perspective, one inch on featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko. He also brandishes the broadest shoulders you’ll ever see on a 112-pound fighter.

The young Mexican was given his nickname, as Estrada told RockyPoint 360, “for my fierceness, up in the ring.”

This isn’t a reckless fierceness, mind you, of the atypical Mexican brawler but the calculated, graceful violence of the Ricardo Lopez variety. Estrada fights like a Nacho Beristain product. But it’s his work under Alfredo Caballero since he was 14 that has produced a marvelous combination puncher and ring general.

Estrada opened his career on an 18-0 run before suffering a decision loss to Juan Carlos Sanchez Jr. who would lift the IBF super flyweight title in his very next fight. El Gallo met up with Sanchez again later that year and knocked him out inside 10 rounds.

He’s been hot ever since, winning 14 of his last 15 fights including an upset victory over Brian Viloria (one of the 10 best fighters in the world at the time) for the WBA and WBO flyweight belts and has since defended them four times, highlighted by his trouncing of world-ranked men Milan Melindo, a technically-sound Filipino, and Segura, another former member of boxing’s pound-for-pound Top 10 after starching Ivan Calderon twice.

However, it’s his lone loss during this stretch that can tell you all you need to know about Estrada.

In November 2012, he dropped down below 112 pounds for the first and only time in his career to take on Roman Gonzalez, the current pound-for-pound king following Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s retirement. The battle was intense. Their punches careened off one another with terrifying force, and more astonishingly, uncanny precision.

Gonzalez walked away the winner on the official scorecards, but Estrada gave a great account of himself even winning the first half of the fight. It was an evenly contested match. No one has ever come that close to edging the undefeated Gonzalez in any of the Nicaraguan’s 43 pro bouts.

Estrada was only 22.

Marquez was just a shade under 22 when he first challenged for a world title in 2010, the interim WBA super flyweight title, losing by knockout to Nonito Donaire.

Between then and his huge showdown with Viloria in 2012, Marquez won seven straight fights to prove himself a top-5 flyweight. He would lose to Viloria in what Bad Left Hook called “the most anticipated flyweight showdown on American airways in years.”

High-level flyweight action is back on US television next month on HBO and Viloria is at the center of it again. This time challenging Roman Gonzalez in the co-feature of Gennady Golovkin’s title defense against David Lemiuex at the Madison Square Garden.

Estrada should have been the one in that New York limelight and a win over Marquez this weekend only strengthens his right to a rematch with either Viloria or Gonzalez.

This time for bigger money and bigger stakes.

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