Rungvisai vs. Estrada averages 639,000 viewers on HBO

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose

Last Saturday night’s main event fight on SuperFly 2 card between WBC super flyweight champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (45-4-1, 40 KOs) and Juan Francisco Estrada (36-3, 25 KOs) averaged 639,000 viewers with a peak of 753,000 viewers on HBO Boxing, according to Dan Rafael.

The fight card took place at The Forum in Inglewood, California. Most of the fans that turned out to watch the fight card live were Estrada fans, and they were hopping mad when he ended up losing the fight by a 12 round majority decision 115-113, 117-111 for Rungvisai and 114-114. The fans booed the decision, and then continued to boo Rungvisai throughout his post-fight interview. They thought Estrada had won, but the judges preferred the more high pressure style of Rungvisai, as he was the one doing most of the fighting in the first 11 rounds. Estrada finally got his act together and started letting his hands go in the 12th, but it was too little too late. Estrada only has himself to blame for the loss. The only round he did enough to win was the 12th. The rest of the rounds were all Rungvisai.

The Rungvisai-Estrada ratings were a drop off from Rungvisai’s previous fight against Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez on September 9th last year on HBO Boxing. Gonzalez-Rungvisai averaged 796,000 viewers with a peak of 835,000. It’s not surprising that fewer boxing fans tuned in to see Rungvisai fight the 27-year-old Estrada, as the Thailand fighter lacked a big named opponent like he had the last time he fought. Estrada is popular in Mexico, but he’s not well known with the casual boxing fans in the U.S. Estrada is not a knockout puncher like Chocolatito.

For most of the fight last Saturday, Estrada was retreating from Rungvisai to avoid his attacks. It wasn’t thrilling to watch, as Estrada was giving ground too often and not fighting back. He was just looking to counter with single shots occasionally. The crowd cheered these sporadic efforts from Estrada, which is why he was given rounds 2, 8 and 10. Those were rounds in which Rungvisai landed the much harder shots and fought harder for most of the rounds. After getting dominated by Rungvisai for two-thirds of rounds 2, 8 and 10, Estrada landed some shots near the end of the rounds and the crowd went crazy because he finally landed some shots. The judges likely were responding to the cheering from the pro-Estrada crowd when they scored the rounds. The 12th round was the only clear round for Estrada.

The co-feature bout between former WBC super flyweight champion Carlos Cuadras (36-3-1, 27 KOs) and McWilliams Arroyo (17-3, 14 KOs) averaged 548,000 viewers with a peak of 598,000 viewers. Arroyo, 32, defeated Cuadras by a 10 round majority decision to win the WBC Silver super flyweight title. Cuadras looked tired from the 4th round on, and Arroyo took over the fight to get the decision. It wasn’t a great fight due to Cuadras’ fatigue. Arroyo was backing away each time Cuadras would attack him, and it was a similar type of fight as the main event between Rungvisai and Estrada. When Cuadras would come forward, Arroyo would either run away from him or grab him in a clinch. It was boring stuff.

In the first fight on the televised portion of the HBO card, IBF World flyweight champion Donnie Nietes (41-1-4, 23 KOs) vs. Juan Carlos Reveco (39-4, 19 KOs) averaged 432,000 viewers with a peak of 533,000 viewers. Nietes knocked out the 34-year-old Reveco in the 7th round of a one-sided contest.

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