Matchroom Confirms Chocolatito-Estrada Trilogy December 3rd
A highly anticipated third fight between multi-time world champions at the smaller weights, Ramon “Chocolatito” Gonzalez and Juan Francisco Estrada is now confirmed for December 3rd with a location.
This after Matchroom Boxing announced the trilogy bout will be in the Phoenix area at the newly renamed Desert Diamond Arena (former Gila Arena) in Glendale, AZ,
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐘 🇲🇽🇳🇮@GalloEstradaOfi and @chocolatitobox go again at @DDArenaAZ, Phoenix on Dec 3!
Live on @DAZNBoxing | #EstradaChocolatito3 pic.twitter.com/vOx9chp5Tz
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) October 1, 2022
As our Dan Rafael wrote previously, Estrada had declined to pursue about with WBA mandated challenger Joshua Franco. He instead elected to vacate that championship. That indicated he wanted the more significant and lucrative bout with Chocolatito.
Estrada, 43-3, 28 KOs. then fought a tune-in bout with fellow countryman Argi Cortes on September 3rd that ended up being quite the battle.
Cortes, in his first bout against a recognizable opponent, gave Estrada an extremely difficult fight for 12 action-packed rounds in the main event of that Matchroom Boxing card televised on DAZN at the Multiple Use Center in Estrada’s hometown of Hermosillo, Mexico.
Estrada out fought him in the final rounds and squeaked a 114-113, 115-112 x 2, unanimous decision victory to put him on course for the trilogy.
The third fight between Estrada and Gonzalez was initially ticketed for October 2021 but postponed when Gonzalez came down with Covid-19. It was then scheduled for March 5 in San Diego but called off six weeks beforehand when Estrada pulled out after contracting Covid-19.
Gonzalez (51-3, 41 KOs), 35, of Nicaragua, instead faced late replacement Julio Cesar Martinez, the WBC flyweight titlist, who moved up for the fight, and dominated him in a lopsided decision win.
In their first meeting in 2012, Gonzalez and Estrada produced a barnburner in which Gonzalez won a decision to retain his junior flyweight title.
Estrada won the follow up fight by narrow split decision over Chocolatito in March of 2021 in Frisco, TX.
Both fighters are regarded as strong Hall of Fame candidates and should finally produce an action packed third bout.
A veteran broadcaster of over 25 years, T.J. has been a fight fan longer than that! He’s the host of the “Big Fight Weekend” podcast and will go “toe to toe” with anyone who thinks that Marvin Hagler beat Sugar Ray Leonard or that Tyson, Lennox Lewis or Deontay Wilder could have beaten Ali!
