Small in stature, big on action: Tip of the hat to Nontshinga and Flores for instant classic
Plus tons of random thoughts: Best card of the year; Estrada-Chocolatito III will be glorious; Ruiz disappoints; Wilder past, present, future; why somebody needs to take away Fury's phone; MUCH MORE!
A whole bunch of boxing random thoughts…
For all the hype that so many fights get and then fail to deliver, it’s a beautiful thing when a bout that got zero hype delivers something truly special.
That’s exactly what happened on Saturday night on DAZN on the Juan Francisco Estrada-Argi Cortes undercard in Hermosillo, Mexico, where South Africa’s Sivenathi Nontshinga and Mexico’s Hector Flores — two unbeaten but largely unknown fighters — slugged it out in a riveting, bloody and just plain awesome action battle for the vacant IBF junior flyweight title. It was a truly great fight and easily a legit contender for fight of the year. It is a must-see fight if you have not seen it. Me? I’ve watched three times already.
Nontshinga notched a second-round knockdown and won a split decision and the 108-pound title in his first fight outside of his home country, assisted no doubt by the forceful and dramatic words from trainer Colin Nathan in the late rounds.
Nathan’s sound bites urging his man on deserve to enter boxing’s pantheon of memorable corner work from luminaries such as Angelo Dundee to Sugar Ray Leonard late in his first fight with Tommy Hearns and Teddy Atlas’ fiery speech to Michael Moorer during his heavyweight championship win over Evander Holyfield.
Nontshinga-Flores might not have had the name value of perhaps the greatest fight in division history — the first of three bouts between Hall of Famers Michael Carbajal and Chiquita Gonzalez to unify titles in the 1993 fight of the year — but it wasn’t far off in terms of excitement.
Matter of fact, the Matchroom Boxing card was overall outstanding as three of the four bouts on the main card delivered tremendous action.
Besides Nontshinga-Flores, Estrada-Cortes was superb as Cortes, a huge underdog, made Estrada work extremely hard to retain the lineal junior bantamweight title in an all-action affair and the opener between junior lightweights Rocky Hernandez and Jorge Mata, which Hernandez won by fifth-round knockout, was also stellar. It’s the best overall card I’ve see so far this year. Only the Erika Cruz-Jelena Mrdjenovich women’s featherweight title rematch, which Cruz won by shutout, was entirely forgettable.