The Pygmy Elephant in the Room

By Jimmy Tobin-

Saturday night, at the Forum in Inglewood, California, super flyweights Srisaket Sor Rungvisai and Juan Francisco Estrada gave HBO subscribers still forking over premium dollars for a mostly derelict product reason to temper their buyer’s remorse. Sor Rungvisai won a majority decision, proving once more that, however loose his grip on it, the division is his; Estrada, incredulous at the result, should ready himself for a rematch as daunting and winnable as its predecessor. HBO should encourage that rematch be scheduled immediately lest its promise be forgotten—taking a reason to maintain an HBO subscription along with it.

There is little need to revisit the action, assuming first, that anyone reading this column will have already seen the fight, and second, that their observations and analysis are equal or superior to those you will find here. Suffice to say that of the two it is Estrada who better instantiates the ideal: his craft, technique, ring intelligence, all superior and all on display Saturday night. He made a fool of Sor Rungvisai on a number of occasions, crashing an uppercut and left hook into his charging opponent before pivoting to safety, burying his cross and pulling back as a timed and measured counter hook whistled harmlessly (and to his noticeable relief) past his nose. And unlike Roman Gonzalez, who was visibly unnerved by Sor Rungivsai’s incorrigible belligerence, Estrada seemed barely to register what dirty work came his way.

And yet he lost, somehow outlanded by an opponent without a jab, one who rarely threw more than two punches at a time. How Sor Rungvisai managed that feat speaks to the craft complementing his presence and proclivities. You do not, after all, go (debatably or otherwise) 3-0 against Gonzalez and Estrada merely by taking better than you give and giving more than most can take (though he never accomplishes that feat without this ability). Sor Rungvisai has an uncanny ability to land punishing shots, but that is not where his charm lies. No, what is so endearing about Sor Rungvisai is that which is so often off-putting: the way he enjoys and exploits advantages in size and strength. There is little agency with such advantages—and scant credit typically attended to their use. Yet Sor Rungvisai wields them with undeniable appeal.

Like fellow southpaw Errol Spence, Sor Rungivisai is a hard puncher who throws hard punches; there is a harmony here between power and disposition, and the tax of so simple, so committed an attack compounds its effect. He could meet painfully the ceiling of his ability should he move up in weight, where his punch and chin may not follow. But at 115lbs, Sor Rungvisai is confined to attrition—and embraces that inevitability with a cool and unsettling arrogance. He can look clumsy, almost novice in his preoccupation with landing his power, yet this version of him, a giant gassed up on his success, has an orbit even world class fighters struggle to exit. It bears repeating that Estrada, and especially Gonzalez in their first fight, abused Sor Rungvisai. But a fight with the Thai is both too long (you cannot tame him for 36 minutes) and too short (you need more than twelve rounds to grind him down). Still, Estrada could very well defeat Sor Rungvisai with a second chance; even short on spite he is fighter enough to overcome both Sor Rungvisai and the bias toward aggression the latter seems to instill in judges.

There is no reason for that rematch to not happen, which means Sor Rungvisai could hang consecutive defeats on both Gonzalez, a generational fighter even past his prime, and Estrada, Gonzalez’ former nemesis. Such matchmaking places this diminutive fighter at a distance far enough from his peers to cast them in his shadow.

True, a fighter can only fight opponents who are available, and some divisions are wanting for talent. But that is hardly what is keeping fights from happening. Intrigue results from two evenly matched and complementary styled fighters meeting, so if your division is bereft of talent, or if you are peerless even in a good division, the solution is to find your challenges at higher weights. Promotional acrimony and pigheadedness scuttle some fights, like the Vasyl Lomachenko-Jorge Linares chimera, and even in-house fights can be difficult when you pay your stable discouragingly well. The fighters in HBO’s informal Superfly tournament suffer from neither a dearth of intriguing challenges nor promotional sabotage, and are, in a sense, paid according to weight—not even two 115lb Sor Rungvisai’s cost anything near what one 250lb Anthony Joshua does. (And there is nothing wrong with paying fighters in accordance with what dollars they generate. Doing otherwise has repeatedly proven a mistake.)

Sor Rungvisai was and is well-positioned then, for an impressive run, but he still has to deliver in the ring. He has, and in doing so has put both fighters and many of boxing’s business practices to shame. And while explanations (those brash and brawny excuses) for why others do not follow in his path may have some legitimacy, asterisks and apologies do not a memorable career make, and hypothetical victories have only hypothetical value—which is to say little if any.

Whatever reasons conspire to prevent other fighters from following his lead, they dull Sor Rungvisai’s shine not at all. In doing what others have not or will not do he enjoys something like a charity of imperilment: he could be 2-2 in his last four fights and his story would still be remarkable. And in a sport where each fighter is a protagonist and careers are stylized in the arc of fiction, such stories are not soon forgotten.