Hello Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. Welcome to the true elite levels of the sport. It only took four rounds to wipe the legend of Chocolatito off the modern map of boxing, putting him out cold in the fourth. In the co-main event, Naoya “Monster” Inoue brutalized Antonio Nieves while Juan Francisco Estrada and Carlos Cuadras put on a really great fight in the opener too. As expected, it was an excellent night of fights on HBO.
Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (44-4-1, 40 KOs) started great against Roman Gonzalez (46-2, 38 KOs), sweeping the first three rounds on my card. Chocolatito was there, firing back, and landing, but the strongest work was done by the Thai champion in part simply because he hits harder. Sor Rungvisai also fought these rounds with supreme confidence while Gonzalez seemed hesitant and unsure exactly how to attack even as he landed.
Things only got worse for the Nicaraguan legend in the fourth round. Early in the round, Roman Gonzalez was caught hard with a huge counter right hook that put him down in spectacular fashion. He got up and continued fighting, but the very same punch put him out cold thirty seconds or so later. Chocolatito Gonzalez was never even in this fight. I didn’t think the first fight was the robbery some of the media cried out, but that is irrelevant now with a definitive win in the rematch.
What a spectacular, bittersweet performance for the biggest star from Thailand in some time. Srisaket Sor Rungvisai has arrived at the highest levels of the sport. Unfortunately it came at the expense of one of the most beloved fighters of our generation, but this is the cold reality of boxing. Someone wins, someone loses. Tonight a torch was passed.
Naoya Inoue (14-0, 12 KOs) brutalized a game but overmatched Antonio Nieves (17-2-2, 8 KOs) on his way to a sixth round stoppage. Nieves surprised me a bit in the first couple rounds with his ability to land on Inoue. He was clearly here to win in a way that I didn’t know if he would be give what he is in against.
It didn’t matter though. Inoue was just too much as he always was going to be. At first it was the piston like jab that the Monster was pumping out doing the damage. Then the ferocious left hooks followed with right hands mixed in for variety’s sake. The last three rounds were particularly brutal, especially after Inoue hurt Nieves with a body shot in the fifth and began focusing almost exclusively downstairs. Another round and a half of merciless body work was what it took for Estrada’s corner to pull him out of the fight.
Juan Francisco Estrada (36-2, 25 KOs) overcame a somewhat slow start to narrowly outpoint Carlos Cuadras (36-2, 27 KOs) in what was a pretty great opening fight. Early on Estrada was doing well, but wasn’t as active or landing quite as much as the charismatic Cuadras and accordingly may have lost the first four rounds. Cuadras’ less traditional movements were working really well for him early.
After the first third of the fight, however, Estrada’s technical superiority really began to show through. He won the fifth and the sixth rounds with the sixth being especially big. While Cuadras rallied at times and picked up another pair of rounds along the way, Estrada was really beating him up at times. In the tenth Cuadras found himself on the seat of his pants following a big right hand from his countryman. That knockdown proved to the the difference as all three judges scored the fight a draw in terms of rounds.
Confusingly and somewhat comically, Michael Buffer read the result to “Carlos Estrada” at first and had calm the crowd to clarify Estrada’s win after. With the win Juan Francisco Estrada is now the mandatory challenger to Chocolatito Gonzalez.
