HBO's critically acclaimed Superfly series has given boxing another Fight of the Year contender in the main event of its second Superfly event in Srisaket Sor Rungvisai vs. Juan Francisco Estrada.
Sor Rungvisai defeated Estrada by majority decision (114-114, 117-111, 115-113) to retain his WBC super flyweight title and capture the vacant Ring Magazine super flyweight title. This fight was Sor Rungvisai's second title defense, his toughest one yet in a pro Estrada card at the Forum in Inglewood, California.
Estrada got off to a solid start in the first couple of rounds, keeping Sor Rungvisai's power in check with numerous right jabs, a natural answer for the southpaw Sor Rungvisai. Estrada would later abandon the jab in favor of taking the fight up close, a decision that would result in Sor Rungvisai using his powerful left hand to turn the tide in the middle portion of the fight.
Sor Rungvisai would find himself in control of the fight until Estrada pushed back and started winning rounds late in the fight, but at that point, it was a little too late for the Mexican fighter to win in the scorecards. This comes despite the fact that the 12th and final round saw both fighters throw everything but the kitchen sink at each other in a round that is already an early Round of the Year contender.
The fight was the definition of a boxing slugfest. More than 1,500 total punches were thrown in the fight with a little more than 1,200 of those punches being power punches. Sor Rungvisai was the busier fighter in both of those categories, throwing more than 200 power punches than Estrada.
Estrada got the opportunity to fight for the WBC title after winning a title eliminator against Carlos Cuadras on the first Superfly card last year in a fight that ended up on Fightful's Boxing Fight of the Year list. On that same card, Sor Rungvisai knocked out Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez in the main event in a rematch from their March 2017 fight at Madison Square Garden.
In terms of a rematch, the two boxers said after the fight that they would be open to having one, likely on a third Superfly card that promoter Tom Loeffler has previously said would most likely happen.