Notebook: Date, site set for trilogy fight between Estrada and 'Chocolatito'

Ortiz-Martin undercard updates; Conor Benn discusses future; Yoka-Bakole postponed; Linares fight set; Quick hits; more

Dec 29, 2021

A quick note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: If you have upgraded to a paid subscription, thank you! If you have not, please consider doing so to receive the most content. A paid subscription is also your way of keeping this reader-supported newsletter going and supporting independent journalism. Happy New Year!

The trilogy fight between junior bantamweight champion Juan Francisco Estrada and former champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez has a date and site.

The friendly rivals will meet on March 5 in the main event of a Matchroom Boxing card on DAZN at the Pechanga Arena in San Diego, a source involved in the event told Fight Freaks Unite.

The fight was initially due to take place on Oct 16 but in September it was postponed before being formally announced after Gonzalez came down with Covid-19 and was forced to withdraw.

Estrada and Gonzalez have waged two action-packed fights already. Their rematch on March 13 in Dallas was one of the best fights of 2021.

Estrada (42-3, 28 KOs), 31, of Mexico, and Gonzalez (50-3, 41 KOs), 34, of Nicaragua, met in their long-awaited sequel and Estrada eked out a controversial split decision to unify two 115-pound world titles in an unforgettable action-packed slugfest. Estrada, who later vacated one of the belts, won 117-111 and 115-113 while Gonzalez, the rightful winner in the eyes of many, won 115-113 on the third scorecard.

Their first fight took place in 2012 and Gonzalez, a four-division champion, retained his junior flyweight world title by unanimous decision over two-division champion Estrada in another action-packed battle.

Ortiz-Martin card updates

Premier Boxing Champions on Tuesday announced that fast-rising heavyweight Frank Sanchez will face Christian Hammer in the 10-round co-feature of the five-fight, all-heavyweight Fox Sports pay-per-view card headlined by the Luis “King Kong” Ortiz-Charles Martin IBF title elimination bout on Saturday (8 p.m. ET, $39.99) at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood , Florida.

Hammer (26-8, 16 KOs), 34, of Germany, replaces Puerto Rico’s Carlos Negron (25-3, 20 KOs), who fell out of the fight after a positive Covid-19 test.

Hammer, who was on standby for just this possibility, is coming off a fifth-round knockout loss to Hughie Fury on Oct. 16 and has lost whenever he has stepped up in competition, including to Ortiz by decision in 2019, Tony Yoka, Alexander Povetkin and Tyson Fury.

Sanchez (19-0, 13 KOs), 29, a Miami-based former amateur standout from Cuba, is coming off his biggest win, a 10-round unanimous decision over then-unbeaten 2016 Nigerian Olympian and top prospect Efe Ajagba in the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder III co-feature on Oct. 9.

PBC also outlined the preliminary bouts that will air for free on Fox beginning at 5 p.m. ET.

The key fight is between blue chip lightweight prospect Frank Martin (14-0, 10 KOs), 26, an Indianapolis native, and Romero Duno (24-2, 19 KOs), 26, of the Philippines, who meet in a 10-rounder.

Martin trains in the Dallas area under Derrick James and alongside unified welterweight titlist Errol Spence Jr. Duno has won three straight fights since Ryan Garcia knocked him out in the first round in November 2019.

In a 10-round heavyweight fight between former Cuban amateur standouts, Las Vegas-based Geovany Bruzon (6-0, 5 KOs), 24, faces 2016 Olympian Lenier Pero (5-0, 3 KOs), 29, who is based in Argentina and owns multiple amateur wins over Sanchez. Bruzon and Pero are both making their United States debut.

Benn eyes big names

Rising welterweight contender Conor Benn, having aced a supposed test against Chris Algieri on Dec. 11, is aiming for the bigger names in the division.

They might not necessarily be in a hurry to face Benn after what he did to Algieri, a vastly experienced former junior welterweight world titleholder, who was riding a four-fight winning streak. But Benn destroyed him in the Matchroom Boxing main event on DAZN at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, England.

Benn, whose next fight is in the works for March or April, would like to face a much bigger name. He named former four-division titleholders Adrien Broner and Mikey Garcia, Danny Garcia, the Amir Khan-Kell Brook winner or reigning titleholder Yordenis Ugas as opponents he would like to fight.

Benn is also interested in fighting again in the United States, where he boxed once before in a preliminary bout in 2017.

I spoke to Benn, the son of British legend Nigel Benn, at length recently about his future plans, the guys he wants to fight and a possible return to box in America, and I wrote about it for World Boxing News. Please read that story here: https://www.worldboxingnews.net/2021/12/27/conor-benn-adrien-broner-amir-khan/amp

Yoka fight postponed

Heavyweight Tony Yoka (11-0, 9 KOs), 29, who won the 2016 Olympic super heavyweight gold medal for France, was supposed to face Martin Bakole (17-1, 13 KOs), 28, a Congo native fighting out of Scotland, on Jan. 15 (ESPN+) at Accor Arena in Paris. However, the card was postponed on Tuesday.

France’s All Star Boxing, Yoka’s co-promoter with Top Rank, announced the fight was off “following the latest announcements from the government regarding the restricting of judges for sporting and cultural events” related to Covid-19.

The promoter said that a new date would be announced soon.

Bakole, who has won six fights in a row since a 10th-round knockout loss to Michael Hunter in October 2018, took the fight a few weeks ago after former world title challenger and French countryman Carlos Takam (39-6-1, 28 KOs), 40, withdrew due to a wrist injury.

Quick hits

Former three-division titlist Jorge Linares, who is in the twilight of his career and coming off a decision loss challenging WBC lightweight titlist Devin Haney in May, is set to return Feb. 22 in Ekaterinburg, Russia. Going into his 20th year as a pro, Linares (47-6, 29 KOs), 36, of Venezuela, who parted ways with longtime promoter Golden Boy after losing to Haney, has signed with Ekaterinburg-based RCC Promotions and will face Zaur Abdullaev in a WBC semifinal title eliminator, the promoter announced. Abdullaev (14-1, 8 KOs), 27, of Ekaterinburg, has won three fights in a row since his only fight outside of Russia, a one-sided fourth-round knockout loss to Haney for the vacant WBC interim lightweight title in September 2019 at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.

IBF junior bantamweight titlist Jerwin Ancajas (33-1-2, 22 KOs), 29, a southpaw from the Philippines, will defend his belt for the 10th time on Feb. 19 on a Premier Boxing Champions card at a site to be determined, Sean Gibbons, who represents Ancajas, told Fight Freaks Unite. Ancajas likely will face Fernando Daniel Martinez (13-0, 8 KOs), 30, of Argentina, according to Gibbons. Ancajas was supposed to meet WBO counterpart Kazuto Ioka (27-2, 15 KOs), 32, of Japan, in a unification bout in Tokyo on Friday (New Year’s Eve), but the fight fell apart when the Japanese government recently banned foreigners from entering the country due to the emergence of the Covid-19 omicron variant. Ioka instead will face countryman Ryoji Fukunaga (15-4, 14 KOs), a 35-year-old southpaw, at the Ota-City General Gymnasium.

Although not formally announced yet, the Boxxer card scheduled for Jan. 29 at Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, Wales, on which middleweights Chris Eubank Jr. and Liam Williams are due to meet and unified women’s middleweight champion Claressa Shields is slated to defend against Ema Kozin, is going to be postponed. Due to the worsening Covid-19 situation, the British Boxing Board of Control will force postponement of all January boxing events. The Welsh government also is severely limiting sporting events. Eubank-Williams was already postponed once before from Dec. 11 because Williams aggravated the shoulder injury he initially suffered during a unanimous decision loss challenging WBO titlist Demetrius Andrade in April.

Matchroom Boxing announced on Tuesday that it has signed junior welterweight Liam Paro (22-0, 13 KOs), 25, a southpaw from Australia, to a long-term promotional agreement. In his last fight, Paro boxed outside of Australia for the first time and, despite getting knocked down in the first round, scored his biggest win, a 10-round split decision over then-undefeated Yomar Alamo on Dec. 18 on the Jake Paul-Tyron Woodley II undercard in Tampa. “I’m delighted to sign with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing in what is a major move for my career,” Paro said. “I’m excited to be a part of their expansion into Australia, but their global platform (on DAZN) also allows me to box in key markets such as the U.S. and U.K. With Matchroom and Ace Boxing Group behind me I know I have the right team to make big moves in the 140-pound division.”

Show and tell

Mike Tyson would become one of the most famous people on earth, but the former undisputed heavyweight champion wasn’t always known in every corner of the globe. There was a time when he was a young, big-punching heavyweight prospect on the rise. Hardcore boxing fans knew of him before he became champion as did the editors of The Ring magazine. Tyson would eventually make countless appearances on the cover of the magazine, but his very first appearance came in the issue dated February 1986 (one which also shamefully featured a very negative review of the iconic movie “Rocky IV”!). I have a very large of collection of The Ring dating back to the 1920s but I’m missing several issues from the 1980s and early ‘90s. For many years I looked for the Tyson debut cover issue, which is surprisingly hard to come by, especially in top condition and without a mailing label. Finally, I found one up to my picky standards and it arrived this week. The search is over!

Estrada-Gonzalez II photo: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing; Benn-Algieri photo: Mark Robinson Matchroom Boxing

To upgrade your subscription please go here: https://danrafael.substack.com/subscribe

Fight Freaks Unite