Srisaket Sor Rungvisai to delay rematch with Juan Francisco Estrada

Boxingnews24.com

By Jim Dower

WBC super flyweight champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai is reportedly dealing with some personal issues, and he won’t be able to fight Juan Francisco Estrada in a rematch as planned for August. The rematch will still take place, but not in August.

According to The Nation, the 31-year-old Rungvisai (45-14-1, 40 KOs) and his girlfriend have split up. This is not an appropriate time for Rungvisai to train right now for the rematch against the 28-year-old Estrada (36-3, 25 KOs).

The postponement for the fight leaves Estrada in a position where he needs to decide whether to wait for Rungivisai or get back in the ring against someone else. It’s been three months since the Rungvisai-Estrada fight. Estrada might want to consider having his management schedule another opponent, so he can keep busy and not waste time on a fight that could take many months.

Rungvisai beat Estrada by a 12 round majority decision last February at The Forum in Inglewood, California. Rungvisai was fighting in front of a large pro-Estrada crowd. Whether the judges were influenced by the cheering for Estrada is unclear. The looked a lot more one-sided than the scores from two of the judges. The scores were 117-110, 115-113 for Rungvisai and 114-114. It appeared to be a clear win for Rungvisai. The judge that scored it a 114-114 draw seemed to be way off with his scoring of the fight.

Rungvisai shook up the 115 lb. weight class by twice beating former pound-for-pound king Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez. Those victories made Rungvisai famous and turned into one of HBO’s popular fighters overnight. Before beating Gonzalez, Rungvisai had lost to Carlos Cuadras by an 8 round technical decision in 2014. Rungvisai looked like he was taking over the fight at the time the bout was stopped due to Cuadras suffering a cut from a clash of heads in round 8.

Many boxing fans felt that Rungvisai was going to walk through Estrada last February. The fight was considered a mismatch on paper when it was first made due to the differences in punching power, and with the way that Rungvisai had been beating everyone. Estrada made sure that he wasn’t going to stand in front of Rungvisai.

That was the game plan Estrada used. He was doing nothing in the first six rounds. The 2nd round was the only round that Estrada landed enough shots to possibly give it to him. Round 8 saw Estrada land some punches, but he was still outgunned by Rungvisai by a considerable margin. The judges still gave it to Estrada. After that, Rungvisai dominated rounds 9, 10 and 11 or at least appeared.

The judges seemed to be scoring the fight based on the cheering from Estrada’s fans rather than what was taking place inside the ring. Estrada won his first clear round of the fight in the 12th. That when was able to hurt the tired Rungvisai with a flurry of shots in the closing seconds of the fight. That was easily the best round of the fight by Estrada. Unfortunately, he waited until the 12th to fight hard, and because of that, he had no chance of winning the fight.

Estrada fans believe that he’s figured out Rungvisai now because of the way he finished strong in the 12th. They believe that he’ll be able to go right at Rungvisai in the rematch and get the better of him and maybe even knock him out. Frankly, I think it would be a huge mistake if Estrada goes after Rungvisai early when he’s still strong and fresh. If Estrada attacks Rungvisai hard in the early round, he might end up just like Chocolatito in getting knocked out.

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