Rodriguez vs. Estrada: A Closer Look at Saturday’s Dream Match-up in Phoenix

Published

11 months ago

June 25, 2024

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The meeting of Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez (19-0) and Juan Francisco Estrada (44-3) in the Footprint Center, Phoenix this Saturday night is a generational clash so satisfying as to feel improbable. When Estrada, the 115lb lineal champion, turned professional Jesse Rodriguez was eight years old. By the time Rodriguez turned professional, Estrada had already been matched for alphabet belts on seven different occasions, winning six. By the time Rodriguez picked up a strap of his own in early 2022, Estrada had been the legitimate lineal champion of the world for three years. This is the king Rodriguez seeks to topple this weekend, one of boxing’s royal bloodlines, and until recently, one of her greatest champions.

But King Estrada has been inactive, the poison of post-COVID 19 boxing, and generally inadvisable for a thirty-four-year-old super-flyweight. Estrada has been waiting for the perfect money fight, the right contest to bring him out of hibernation and into the arena, but that arrangement is the cousin of retirement. If a fighter is refusing to budge for less than a given amount, he’s really saying he might not fight again, an important psychological step. Estrada has spent all of 2023 and some of 2024 with his feet up and he hasn’t made weight since December 11, 2022. He hit 115lbs dead on the nose and the following day boxed his in his most recent contest, against fellow sub 118lb legend Roman Gonzalez.

Everything Jesse Rodriguez needs to know about Estrada is contained within these twelve rounds of boxing, the good and the bad, the reason to be cautious. Leaping straight to the twelfth round and the reason Rodriguez should be cautious: beaten and having lost every one of the last five rounds on my card, Estrada rallied to win the twelfth on pure heart. His three-time opponent, the man with whom he shared the best trilogy of the twenty-first century, Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez was naturally more robust than Estrada. Being hit bothers him less than all but a tiny handful of fighters and that more than anything drew him close to victory over his old foe. Estrada resolved to contest the line he had been breaking before Gonzalez in that twelfth round and he did so while dealing some of the highest-class left-handed work that can be seen in boxing today. In the twelfth, as in the first, he jabbed, led with left hooks to the body, pierced with a lead left-uppercut and tied on a final punch, the riskiest punch, to all his combos where he had been stepping out earlier before. It won him the round and the fight; if he’d balked in that twelfth round the fight would have been a draw and the fourth between Gonzalez and Estrada would now have been boxed, to what result is anyone’s guess.

What Rodriguez sees in that twelfth round is the part of Estrada that has been unbreakable. It might be easier to change his mind with punches than it is to change Roman’s, but it is Estrada who is in possession of the truly unbreakable chin. Nobody has even been close to stopping him and when it seemed that Gonzalez had strategically broken him, he found it in him to win the fight’s most important round against the run of action in ninety seconds that may have done more to define his career than any other thirty-six minutes. Estrada must be completely broken to be broken at all.

More, if Rodriguez watches the first half of that fight, he will see style that does not please him. Estrada spent the first six rounds against Gonzalez controlling perhaps the finest ring-general of his generation bar Floyd Mayweather. Estrada’s left-hand is a delight, a paradigm of variety. He will lead with the left hand to the body, probably the second riskiest punch from the orthodox stance, and he will throw it all the way across himself to the far hip of his opponent if the front quarter is properly guarded. Behind this, all punches are possible, hooks and uppercuts abound, and the division’s best power jab is a punch that he must not be allowed to settle behind if he is to be beaten.

Fortunately for Rodriguez, it is a punch that can be disrupted, not least because Estrada wants to throw more hurtful punches in many moments. If he settles behind his left jab he will win, but he has many more routes to victory and he is no slave to that punch. Certainly though, Rodriguez has the tools to disrupt Estrada’s offence generally and his jab especially. I am ready to dismiss Estrada’s jab as a factor in this fight – that is how good Rodriguez is.

The Footprint Center is a venue that has been kind to Rodriguez. He was brilliant there in February of 2022 for his arrival in earnest at the top of the sport, out-pointing veteran Carlos Cuadras over twelve rounds to lift an alphabet strap at 115lbs. It was not a close fight; I gave Cuadras three rounds, one of them arguable, and two of the judges saw it the same way. What most impressed about Rodriguez was the very thing that Roman Gonzalez used to his advantage in his third war with Estrada, his indifference to the punishment the supposedly bigger man and puncher, Cuadras, inflicted. Indeed, Rodriguez made a strategic error in spending too much time in the pocket fighting it out with Cuadras, when his greater successes were either at range or moving in to close range and then moving straight back out. He was indifferent to Cuadras and his hitting for the most part, punching all the while.

Rodriguez worked this charm with excellent footwork, taking advantage of his natural excellence in balance to pivot right and open up new vistas for his punches. After losing the first round to Cuadras, Rodriguez won a close second and then in the third stamped his authority on the fight. Cuadras cannot say he wasn’t warned; after landing a good southpaw uppercut in the first thirty seconds of the round, he landed a second only moments later, and Cuadras was deposited neatly on his backside.

This will not work against Estrada – he’d read the runes on the first punch and change the distance or the angles. Estrada doesn’t have quite the talent for balance that Rodriguez does, but he understands where he is in the ring as well as anyone. That is why even Gonzalez couldn’t trap him along the ropes early in the third fight, Estrada was always ready to retaliate or move. That said, Estrada, the slower man, might find himself vulnerable to these pivots and changes of fortune, especially as he’s trying to develop his jab early in the fight. Estrada has an interesting strategic choice to make early in this contest: will he give ground or try to hustle up? Rodriguez has shown a certain vulnerability to infighting ostensibly larger men at the 115lb limit but Estrada has shown brilliance in drawing aggressive fighters into space and punishing them savagely. He could mix these strategies but history has shown that Estrada prefers to box with a real clarity of plan. It may not be wise to compromise that clarity at this late stage.

Assuming Estrada goes with his preferred method of dealing with quick pressure, giving ground and countering the man and the space, he may find himself being out-sped and out-hit; a slow start would be disastrous for him so if he finds Rodriguez is able to make his way in to range and land while Estrada is waiting to counter, he will need to stand his ground and we will have a war on our hands. Either way this feels like a fight that cannot fail to deliver.

I feel quite strongly that Estrada’s time has come. That he has the wrong amount of wear on him, over too many years and now with eighteen months of inactivity making matters more uncertain, he’ll get found out in the second half of the fight and find himself dropping a clear decision in the region of 116-112.

I will be very happy to be proven wrong though. Estrada is a modern wonder and I’ve loved every moment of his hard-charging ambitious career, and I do think that the 2020 version would have been too much for even this summitting Rodriguez.

For the winner, a top five pound-for-pound slot.

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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Published

2 days ago

May 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Arne’s Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

It’s old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. That’s according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.

In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.

Those standings would be revised the next night – knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.

CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.

****

Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment – entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.

Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoter’s dream. It’s no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter – and by an overwhelming margin — is “Kid.”

And that partly explains Naoya Inoue’s charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.

Joey Archer

Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer

Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.

Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)

Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.

Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, “Will-o’-the Wisp” Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.

In all honesty, Archer’s style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didn’t have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.

When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasn’t quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.

Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joey’s trainer and manager late in Joey’s career.

May he rest in peace.

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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Published

3 days ago

May 4, 2025

David A. Avila

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Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue banged it out with Mexico’s Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.

Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.

“By watching tonight’s fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,” Inoue said.

Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.

After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.

Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.

One thing promised by Cardenas’ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter “can crack.”

Cardenas proved his trainer’s words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.

“I was very surprised,” said Inoue about getting dropped. ““In the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.”

Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.

A real fight was happening.

Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.

Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.

In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.

“I dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,” said Cardenas. “So, I came to give everything.”

Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoue’s combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.

In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.

“I knew he was tough,” said Inoue. “Boxing is not that easy.”

Espinoza Wins

WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.

“I wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,” said Espinoza.

Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.

Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.

It was Espinoza’s third title defense.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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Undercard Results and Recaps from the Inoue-Cardenas Show in Las Vegas

Published

3 days ago

May 4, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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The curtain was drawn on a busy boxing weekend tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas where the featured attraction was Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue appearing in his twenty-fifth world title fight.

The top two fights (Inoue vs. Roman Cardenas for the unified 122-pound crown and Rafael Espinoza vs. Edward Vazquez for the WBO world featherweight diadem) aired on the main ESPN platform with the preliminaries streaming on ESPN+.

The finale of the preliminaries was a 10-rounder between welterweights Rohan Polanco and Fabian Maidana. A 2020/21 Olympian for the Dominican Republic, Polanco was a solid favorite and showed why by pitching a shutout, punctuating his triumph by knocking Maidana to his knees late in the final round with a hard punch to the pit of the stomach.

Polanco improved to 16-0 (10). Argentina’s Maidana, the younger brother of former world title-holder Marcos Maidana, fell to 24-4 while maintaining his distinction of never being stopped.

Emiliano Vargas, a rising force in the 140-pound division with the potential to become a crossover star, advanced to 14-0 (12 KOs) with a second-round stoppage Juan Leon. Vargas, who turned 21 last month, is the son of former U.S. Olympian Fernando Vargas who had big money fights with the likes of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya. Emiliano knocked Leon down hard twice in round two – both the result of right-left combinations — before Robert Hoyle waived it off.

A 28-year-old Spaniard, Leon was 11-2-1 heading in.

In his U.S. debut, 29-year-old Japanese southpaw Mikito Nakano (13-0, 12 KOs) turned in an Inoue-like performance with a fourth-round stoppage of Puerto Rico’s Pedro Medina. Nakano, a featherweight, had Medina on the canvas five times before referee Harvey Dock waived it off at the 1:58 mark of round four. The shell-shocked Medina (16-2) came into the contest riding a 15-fight winning streak.

Lynwood, California junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr, a 19-year-old protégé of Robert Garcia, scored a sixth-round stoppage of Chicago’s Juan Carlos Guerra. There were no knockdowns, but the bout had turned sharply in Barrera’s favor when referee Thomas Taylor intervened. The official time was 1:15 of round six.

Barrera improved to 9-0 (7 KOs). The spunky but outclassed Guerra, who upset Nico Ali Walsh in his previous outing, declined to 6-2-1.

In the lid-lifter, a 10-round featherweight affair, Muskegon Michigan’s Ra’eese Aleem improved to 22-1 (12) with a unanimous decision over LA’s hard-trying Rudy Garcia (13-2-1). The judges had it 99-01, 98-92, and 97-93.

Aleem, 34, was making his second start since June of 2023 when he lost a split decision in Australia to Sam Goodman with a date with Naoya Inoue hanging in the balance.

Check back shortly for David Avila’s recaps of the two world title fights.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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