They put the best two fighters in a division in the ring and they deliver all that a fan could want- skills, action, and drama all come together, and even though it seems that many are disappointed in the judging, there can be no doubt that Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman Gonzalez put forth a classic for the ages with Estrada keeping his WBC junior bantamweight title and adding the WBA title held by Gonzalez to his collection.
There is a bit of controversy, as it seems that the majority feel that the split decision that was given to Estrada should have been owned by Gonzalez and there are even a few that are using the term "robbery".
I scored the fight even at 114-114, so I didn't have a problem with 115-113 for either fighter as two judges saw the fight, but the 117-111 tally for Estrada was extremely bad and has taken a little shine off a tremendous fight among boxing's followers.
I've written before when I score fights as a draw that sometimes the scorecards wind up even, but you have a "feel" that one fighter has the edge ( one example was Oleksandr Usyk vs Mairis Briedis) despite the scorecard.
In the case of this fight, it had the feel of Gonzalez nosing Estrada out and the Compubox stats did have Gonzalez throwing more and landing more in a give-and-take battle.
I haven't examined the official cards round by round, but often when you see a scorecard that is out of whack as the one offending judge scored, it happens because they either already have it in their mind what is going to happen or they simply really like one style or the other and that fighter is given the benefit of the doubt in every close round.
Still, I hate the calls of robbery.
I think the 9-3 Gonzalez cards around the internet are just as bad as the official 9-3 Estrada card and while some will say a close fight can be a robbery, I usually disagree with one exception.
Occasionally, you will see a 7-5 fight that didn't have any close rounds and each fighter clearly won their rounds.
In that case, I can see that, but this fight wasn't that way.
Estrada controlled the fight when he was able to move Gonzalez backward, when Gonzalez came forward or stood evenly with Estrada, Chocolatito took command.
Estrada wasn't always willing to commit to this tactic and while it didn't hurt on the scorecards, it did cause fans to give Gonzalez more benefits of the doubt in the close rounds.
Estrada will be facing the third member of this 115-pound triangle in Srisaket Sor Rungvisai next in a mandatory fight.
Rungvisai stepped aside to allow the unification fight to take place and the Thai has split two fights against Estrada winning the first and losing the second with his WBC title with it.
As for Gonzalez, one idea put forth by Carlos Toro (@carlostoromedia) on Twitter sounds great to me with Gonzalez facing Japan's Kazuto Ioka, who is coming off a big win over Kosei Tanaka on New Year's Eve, for Ioka's WBO title on the same card as Estrada-Rungvisai with the winners then meeting in the following fight for three of the four titles in the division.
That would be a terrific plan and would offer three intriguing matchups and perhaps the losers could be enticed to square off as well.
No matter your thoughts on the rightful winner, it's rare to have an elite fight with all the trimmings in boxing and even more rare to have both fighters behave so classy following the fight as well.
I'm all for doing this one again in the future.
The main undercard bout saw Hiroto Kyoguchi retain his WBA light flyweight title after challenger Axel Vega suffered a hand injury in the fifth round and was unable to continue.
The unheralded Vega was doing better than expected against Kyoguchi through four rounds by aggressively pushing the heavily favored champion backward, but after landing a right hand in the fifth round to the top of Kyoguchi's head, Vera crumpled in pain to the ropes and the referee quickly stopped the bout.
The match was surprisingly competitive, but I was a little disappointed in the performance of Kyoguchi, who I was excited to see in his American debut.
In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored three points on the DAZN/Matchroom card to move the total points to 23-22.
I'll be back later with the Showtime results and over the next few days, I'll be doing a rewatch of Estrada-Gonzalez, and planned posts on the losses of Marvin Hagler and Joe Tait in recent days...
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