HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT
The super-flyweight division dishes up another mouth-watering matchup
Sor Rungvisai and Estrada collide in one of boxing’s best divisions, writes WHAT MAKES SOR RUNGVISAI SO EFFECTIVE IS HIS ABILITY TO WEAPONISE HIS AWKWARDNESS
RARELY does the law of cause and effect apply to boxing, the anarchic blood sport dominated by the Kafkaesque whims of its erratic powerbrokers. But when Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and Juan Francisco Estrada clash in a sequel to the thrilling ‘Superfly’ card HBO aired in September – where Sor Rungvisai and Estrada each won separate bouts – it marks the uncommon instance of logic taking precedence over happenstance. Sor Rungvisai defends his WBC super-flyweight title against Estrada at the Forum in Inglewood, California this Saturday (February 24) on HBO. Promociones Zanfer and K2 Promotions stage the event.
In America, land of the skyscraper, the Whopper, the Hummer and the Hollywood blockbuster, personal identification with diminutive athletes is, for the most part, a non-starter. But with HBO struggling to maintain its presence in an increasingly fractured US television market, the super-flyweights step into the spotlight for the beleaguered network.
While HBO and its upstart counterpart Showtime have featured the lighter weight classes in the past, in recent years the division cutoff seems to have settled at 118lbs, with Nonito Donaire, Vic Darchinyan and Jorge Arce being brief exceptions. Not since the days of Humberto Gonzalez, Michael Carbajal, Ricardo Lopez and Johnny Tapia have the smaller fighters been given such a push. In Sor Rungvisai-estrada, that push serves to benefit a potentially thrilling pick ‘em