Superfly 3 turned out better in the ring than on paper. That is why they fight the fights.
Juan Francisco Estrada (37-3, 25 KOs) was a big favorite last night going into his Superfly 3 main event against much lesser known fellow Mexican foe Felipe Orucuta (36-5, 30 KOs). After all, Estrada was battle tested with largely positive results against truly elite fighters while Orucuta had been competitive near that level, but had never pulled off the big win. I even called the fight a tuneup. I was being intentionally hyperbolic, but still. What was supposed to happen here was clear.
From a results oriented expected, the anticipated outcome did arrive. Juan Francisco Estrada had his hand raised with wide cards in his favor of 118-110 and 117-111 twice. The fight was much of a struggle than that in reality though. The first eight rounds or so were razor close. Orucuta can punch and Estrada wasn’t where he needed to be defensively. It made for a much more fun and tense fight than the one that was expected though. Action was always set to be the main course here, but it wasn’t supposed to go two ways so often. Estrada did take over the last third of the fight to seal the victory, however. Class did eventually show over time. I scored the fun fight 116-112 for him and HBO’s Harold Lederman had it a round closer at 115-113.
Juan Francisco still has his eyes set on a potential Superfly 4 rematch with Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and may simply have overlooked Orucuta here a bit. I know I did, anyway.
If the main event scores were probably too wide, the co-main event cards had a much more unfortunate opposite problem. Donnie Nietes (41-1-5, 23 KOs) pretty clearly dominated the bulk of his fourth weight class title opportunity against fellow Filipino fighter Aston Palicte (24-2-1, 12 KOs). It was a clear, if not always super exciting outclassing from the 36 year old borderline Filipino legend. All the judges had to do was hook the belt up around his waist, basically. Nope. Somehow the cards came back a split draw. One judge came back with a sensible 118-110 in Nietes favor, but the other two cards turned in were a 114-114 draw and a truly headscratching 116-112 in Palicte’s favor from Robert Doyle. That is an absolutely horrific scorecard, one truly worthy of serious commission scrutiny. That score is one of those rare cards that leave you seriously wondering if the judge knew which fighter was which during the contest. The younger Filipino was active in there for sure, but he wasn’t landing. Almost all the good work came from the three and should be four division titleholder. Boxing failed Donnie Nietes here in a big way.
Former consensus top flyweight Kazuto Ioka (23-1, 13 KOs) was the star of the show in his American debut as he ended his brief, year and a half retirement and made both his super flyweight and American debut against McWilliams Arroyo (17-4, 14 KOs) in the show’s opener. The 29 year old Japanese three division titleholder dominated the first few rounds of the fight with his aggression. Arroyo, coming off a career best win against Carlos Cuadras, looked tentative and unsure of his ability to deal with Ioka’s pressure early. When he decided to try to up his game in the third round, Ioka promptly deposited him on the canvas with a nice right hand. From there Ioka’s pressure and body work carried the day. McWilliams was largely helpless to do a whole lot about it. This was an impressive outclassing of a top fighter by the new Japanese contender in the division. I score the fight 98-91 with the officials reporting in at 99-90 and 97-92 twice.
All in all HBO delivered another good show in the Superfly series. Here’s to hoping it continues, but the network is clearly not committed to the sport at this point so the series’s future remains to be seen.
