Rematch time: Juan Francisco Estrada fights Roman Gonzalez in battle of champions

On March 13, WBA flyweight champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (50-2, 41 KO’s) and WBC and The Ring titleholder Juan Francisco Estrada (41-3, 28 KO’s) will meet for the second time.

In 2012 Gonzalez, 33-0, and seemingly unbeatable at the time, picked up a unanimous decision in the 5th defense of his WBA world light flyweight title.

After the fight, Estrada, of Hermosillo, Mexico, would beat star Brian Viloria and take his WBC and WBO world flyweight titles. He would make a very impressive 5 title defenses over the next 2 years before leaving the weight to go into the super flyweight division.

After 3 straight wins from 2106-2017, Estrada would lose a decision in a challenge to Wisaksil Wangek, in February of 2018, for his WBC world super flyweight title. However, after putting together 3 more wins in 2018, he successfully defeated Wangek to take his title in April of 2019. And, now after 3 successful title defenses of his WBC super-fly title he is looking to capture Gonzalez’s WBA title.

Gonzalez, a huge star in his home of Nicaragua, went into the first fight with Estrada making the 6th defense of his WBA world light flyweight title, and looked good in beating Estrada by a unanimous decision. After the bout he would rattle of 5 wins before capturing the WBC world flyweight title in 2014.

He would make 4 defenses before capturing the WBC super flyweight title in September of 2016. However, in his first defense he lost a unanimous decision to former Estrada conqueror Wangek.

Then, in the rematch he was stopped in 4 rounds. At this time, it looked like after 46 bouts, over a dozen years, and at 30-years of age, (not young for such a light weight) that perhaps he had to face the problem many lighter weight fighters do – they can no longer make their ideal weight but aren’t naturally big enough to compete at the only weight they can make.

However, after taking a year off Gonzalez came back and put 2 wins together before challenging, and beating, undefeated Brit Khalid Yafai to capture his WBA super flyweight title in February of last year. After defending his title in October, he is now set to face Estrada in March in a bout that should be a great fight.

Fight fans know that styles make fights, and these two all-action bangers should bring it.

In a recent interview, promoter Eddie Hearn was as excited as anyone about the fight that sees both Estrada, 30, and Gonzalez, 33, looking as strong as ever at this point in their careers.

"This is going to be a special fight,” said Hearn. “It’s been a long time coming but both men are in their prime now, with Juan Francisco serving up a dramatic stoppage win in his fight of the year contender with Cuadras, and Chocolatito rolling back the years with his clinical KO win over Yafai and looking razor sharp against Gonzalez," he said.

The famed British promoter also knows that the winner is one step closer to being the undisputed champion in the division, something both fighters want.

"Estrada is the number one in the division but Chocolatito will be looking to repeat his win – the winner will take a massive step to becoming undisputed; this is a must-see fight."