Juan Francisco Estrada vs. Carlos Cuadras – Results

Juan Francisco Estrada vs. Carlos Cuadras – Results

Juan Francisco Estrada vs. Carlos Cuadras – Results

Juan Francisco Estrada vs. Carlos Cuadras – Results

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Former flyweight champion Juan Francisco Estrada (36-3, 25 KOs) edged former 115 lb. champion Carlos Cuadras (36-2-1, 27 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision on Saturday night to become the WBC mandatory challenger to champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

The ringside announcer made a mistake after the fight when reading the winner by saying that Cuadras was the winner. Cuadras then marched around the ring, celebrating and waving to the crowd. Moments later, the ringside announcer fixed his mistake by letting the boxing fans know that Estrada was the real winner. The fans were pleased, as they weren’t happy with the original decision.

The scores were 114-113, 114-113 and 114-113. Boxing News 24 had Estrada winning a razor thin decision by the score 114-113. The knockdown in round 10 is what gave Estrada the win.

Estrada dropped Cuadras with a left-right combination in round 10. That was a devastating knockdown for Cuadras, because he would have won the fight if he hadn’t been dropped.

Using his superior size, the bigger, stronger Cuadras, 29, dominated the fight in the first 5 rounds of the fight. Cuadras was very busy with his offense, and he had a lot more power than the 27-year-old Estrada. However, starting in round 6, Estrada began to come on and take the fight to Cuadras with his pinpoint shots to the head and body. Before Estrada started coming on, Cuadras was the one coming forward and dominating the action. The entire dynamics of the fight changed, however, in round 6, as Cuadras started getting backed up, and he didn’t look nearly as confident as he had before. Estrada seemed to realize that he needed to take the fight and put pressure on Cuadras for him to have a chance of winning. That’s how Gonzalez beat Cuadras last year in September. Gonzalez continually pressured Cuadras in the second half of the fight and he ended up wearing him down to win a 12-round decision.

In round 7, Cuadras’ shots seemed to lose their snap on them. He didn’t have the same power that he had in the previous rounds, and he was no longer attacking like he’d been doing. The boxing fans at ringside were cheering loudly each time Estrada would land one of his hard head-snapping shots to the head of Cuadras. The applause energized Estrada, causing him to attack even more. Cuadras seemed to be coming unglued mentally with the way he was being attacked by Estrada. Cuadras was still throwing jabs to the midsection and left-combinations to the body, but the power wasn’t the same.

At the start of round 8, Estrada nailed Cuadras with a huge uppercut to the head that snapped his head back violently. Cuadras’ offense was completely dead in this round. He looked like he had nothing left. The only thing Cuadras could muster up was jabs, which weren’t enough for him to win the round and impress the crowd.

Round 9 was close one with both guys having their way. It was Estrada in the first part of the round, but then Cuadras came on in the last minute to land some nice shots. Overall, Estrada did the better work of the two.

Cuadras was on fire in the 10th round in rushing forward and landing body shots without worrying about getting hit. This bad practice finally caught up to Cuadras when he was hit hard with a left hook from Estrada after throwing a 1-2 combination to the body. Estrada then followed up with a right hand to the head of Cuadras that sent him down on his backside on the canvas. Cuadras got up immediately and showed that he wasn’t hurt. However, Estrada tore into him anyway in landing some big shots to finish the round in impressive fashion.

Cuadras came out fast at the start of round 11, landing some enormous power shots to the head and body of Estrada. It looked like Cuadras had gotten his second wind and was going to finish the fight like he’d started in using his size and power to dominate Estrada. However, in the second half of the round, Estrada nailed Cuadras with some beautiful uppercuts and hooks to the head that seemed to stun him. Cuadras looked uncomfortable with the pinpoint shots that he was getting hit with by Estrada. The boxing fans were cheering like mad each time Estrada landed anything of significance. It was clear that the fans were backing Estrada for whatever reason. It is unclear why though, as he mostly fights in Mexico and Cuadras is the one that has fought in the U.S in the past against Roman Gonzalez?

Cuadras fought well in round 12 in outworking Estrada for most of the round, and landing the better and more numerous shots. Estrada did connect with some good punches in the round, but it was too little too late. Cuadras had outworked him in that round.

All in all, it was a satisfactory performance from Estrada. He showed that he could beat a bigger and stronger fighter in Cuadras. Estrada isn’t quite as good a super flyweight compared to when he was fighting in the flyweight division. It might be hard for Estrada to dominate like he was doing when he was fighting at 112. That was the best division for him, but obviously there’s no money for him in that weigh class. he’s got to fight at super flyweight for him to get the big money fights against the likes of Roman Gonzalez and Naoya Inoue. Those are big fights for Estrada. I’m not sure if he can beat either of those guys, but he’ll get a big payday fighting those type of guys.

For Cuadras, he needs to work on his stamina, as this is his third straight fight in which he gassed out in the second half of the fight. Cuadras faded against Gonzalez last year, and then gassed out against David Carmona in winning a controversial 10 round unanimous decision on March 18. Cuadras might be better off moving up to the bantamweight division, because he looks huge for the super flyweight weigh class. The strain of taking off weight might be too much for Cuadras.

The win for Estrada was his 10h straight since losing to Roman Gonzalez in November 2011.