Superfly 3 is upon us. While it isn’t as loaded as HBO’s first two shows in the series, the card still promises high level action Saturday night.
Let’s just do this fight by fight:
Juan Francisco Estrada (36-3, 25 KOs) v Felipe Orucuta (36-4, 30 KOs)
Look, this is a strangely poor main event for the Superfly series. At the same time, however, it will certainly be an action oriented fight even if it ends up being as one sided as expected. Estrada is a a former 112 lb titleholder with an especially impressive resume featuring wins over the likes of Brian Viloria, Milan Melindo, and Hernan Marquez during that reign. He also faced prime Chocolatito in his one bid for a 108 lb title, but he fell short like everyone else did back then. He has had four fights up at super flyweight now. Two fights ago he upset Carlos Cuadras on the first Superfly in an excellent fight and somehow mostly topped that in Superfly 2 by narrowly losing an exciting split decision to divisional king Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. I have the Mexican warrior sitting comfortably at #2 in the division. I have Orucuta at 16th. The B-sides claim to fame here is a pair of two close losses to longtime titleholder Omar Narvaez in Argentina, but he doesn’t have any real world level wins. Still, both of these men are action oriented and Orucuta is enough of a pro that I can’t see Estrada walking through him quickly. He’ll have to fight and he’ll have no problem obliging.
Donnie Nietes (41-1-4, 23 KOs) v Aston Palicte (24-2, 20 KOs)
Is there a less appreciated fighter in the sport than Donnie Nietes? The three division titleholder is 30-0-2 since the start of 2005. He has won true world titles at 105, 108, and 112. Here he will be competing for a vacant super flyweight title at 115 lbs. Even though we’ve been in the multiple belt era for a long time now, still less than twenty men over the history of the sport have picked up that achievement. Nietes recent career has been a series of excellent performances, but none were more important than his Superfly 2 demolition of durable contender Juan Carlos Reveco. That was an eye opener. Fellow Filipino Aston Palicte isn’t a super compelling opponent for the vacant title fight and 115 lb debut of Nietes though, unfortunately. He has no significant wins and last well below this level as recently as 2016. Donnie should cruise here on the way to his fourth world title. I would be remiss not to mention that the Filipino is 36 years old, however. That is old at any weight except maybe heavyweight, but it is downright ancient at the flyweights. Small fighters age faster with very few exceptions. So far Nietes has been one of the rare ones, but 36 at super flyweight is borderline Bernard Hopkins level stuff. It is entirely possible that he could fall off a cliff at basically any fight from now on.
Kazuto Ioka (22-1, 13 KOs) v McWilliams Arroyo (17-3, 14 KOs)
Kazuto Ioka and McWilliams Arroyo might not have the name recognition of a Juan Francisco Estrada to American audiences, but this is the competitive main event of the card. Many considered Ioka the class of the flyweight division when he walked away from the sport prematurely early last year at only 28 years old. The retirement obviously didn’t take, however. Like with Nietes, Ioka’s signature wins are over Juan Carlos Reveco. He is also looking for his fourth title, though it won’t come here as nothing is on the line. Instead, a win here very likely puts him in position to compete for one, maybe on Superfly 4 should such a card come to pass. McWilliams Arroyo is a big test for a first fight at the weight though so that is no guarantee. The Puerto Rican was an amateur standout who represented his island in Tokyo before winning the 2009 Amateur World Championships. It was a complete shocker then to see him lose his third pro fight. He rebounded to build his record back up, but Arroyo fell short in his title big against Amnat Ruenroeng by about the narrowest margins possible in 2014. Chocolatito dominated him two fights later, but who didn’t the Nicaraguan great dominate back then? McWilliams took almost two years off after that one sided loss and was booked on Superfly 2 as a credible but likely win for Carlos Cuadras to set up another big fight for the Mexican down the line. Everything did not go according to plan, however, and Arroyo largely controlled the fight for his biggest win of his career by far. That sort of momentum coming into the Ioka fight has me really excited.
Overview
I basically said it already with my dad joke of a title, but this card is not as “Super” as Superfly 1 and 2. In fact, it is worse by a good margin. It also isn’t a bad card either though and I’m really into the opener. Estrada and Orucuta will display some fireworks even if it is one sided and Nietes might look downright spectacular against Palicte, but then again he is 36 so that provides some intrigue too. I’ll probably watch this one after the bigger Showtime show as the two conflict in a big way. The Garcia-Porter show starts at 9 PM Eastern while this one has a 9:45 PM start time on HBO. It is unfortunate that there needs to be a choice at all (couldn’t we have had one at 8 and one at 10?), but the Showtime show is the no-brainer between the two to watch live.
