Juan Estrada edges Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez by majority decision

Fighting for the third time in their classic rivalry, Juan Estrada finally established superiority over rival Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez. After another tremendous 12 rounds of action, Estrada’s strong boxing over the early rounds was enough to earn him a narrow majority decision to capture the WBC super flyweight championship on Saturday night in Glendale, Arizona.

Gonzalez looked off from the opening moments of the fight, spending most of each round chasing Estrada around the ring but without finding much success when he was able to trap Estrada’s back against the ropes. In return, Estrada was able to fight with a slick style off the back foot, catching Gonzalez coming in with quicker, sharper combinations on his older foe.

In theory, the moments where Golzalez managed to trap Estrada against the ropes should have been good moments for “Chocolatito,” but it was Estrada who had the bigger moments in those situations, popping off quick combinations and escaping to the center of the ring without taking much damage.

In the middle rounds, Gonzalez seemed to figure things out, suddenly applying pressure more effectively and finally landing effective punches as Estrada went backward and into the ropes. After the strong start to the fight, it was Estrada who needed to make adjustments and wrest back control of the fight he had well in hand during the early rounds.

After Estrada seemed to have grabbed control of the fight in the early rounds, the resurgence of Gonzalez over the second half of the fight left things very much in the air in the 12th round, leading to a wild final three minutes with both men emptying the tank in an effort to lock up the decision. Both men flurried, landed clean shots and sent the fight to the judges with the result very much unclear.

After 12 rounds of wild momentum swings, the ringside judges turned in scores of 114-114, 116-112 and 115-113, awarding Estrada…