By Dan Ambrose: Juan Francisco Estrada (43-3, 28 KOs) had a much tougher time than he expected on Saturday night as he successfully defended his WBA franchise super flyweight title against the young, stronger and faster Argi Cortes (23-3-2, 10 KOs), winning a 12-round unanimous decision at the Centro de Usos Múltiples in Hermosillo, Mexico.
The judges’ scores were 115-112, 115-112 and 114-113. Two of those scores were too wide for the fight that took place tonight, but you have to realize that Estrada would get extra rounds because he was fighting at home. We saw him win a terribly controversial decision against Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez last year that was a much lower rated fight than this one.
It can be argued that Cortes did enough to win the fight, but he was fine either way.
Estrada had to bounce back for the win by knocking down the 27-year-old Cortes in the seventh round and taking the eighth and ninth. However, Cortés’s youth showed in the championship rounds, as he appeared to sweep on days 10, 11 and 12.
Obviously the judges didn’t see it that way, as they went with local fighter Estrada, but Cortes clearly outboxed the aging Juan Francisco in the last three rounds.
Estrada had been fighting with a bloody nose since the fourth round after Cortes hit him with a flurry of punches that made him look injured on the ropes. It was target practice for Cortes in rounds four through six, as he overpowered Rusty Estrada in the ring, making him look slow and slow in the process.
After an 18-month layoff and a controversial 12-round split decision win over Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez last May, the 32-year-old Estrada looked much older than his chronological age of 32.
This was supposed to have been an easy fight for Estrada against an unranked fighter, but it turned out to be one of his toughest fights since his loss to Srisaket Sor Rungvisai.
If this is Estrada’s last fight before facing Chocolatito in his trilogy fight, he’s in trouble because the former four-division world champion is going to tear him apart.
Estrada looks run down from the last time he fought Chocolatito, but the 1000+ punches Roman threw in that fight has something to do with it. Chocolatito punished Estrada in that fight, and tonight’s performance is a product of that.
