By Bart Barry-
Friday in Mexico City in the co-main and main event of a DAZN card Nicaraguan Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez defended his WBA super flyweight title by lopsided decision over Mexican Israel “Jiga” Gonzalez, and Mexican “El Gallo” Juan Francisco Estrada defended his Ring super flyweight championship by stopping Mexican Carlos “Principe” Cuadras. Rumor is, Chocolatito-Gallo 2 is next. How blessed are we!
What a thrill it is to watch Chocolatito and to see other aficionados on Twitter, men whose opinion one respects, watching Chocolatito and their love for this brutal thing of ours and our love for the way Chocolatito does what he does. May he continue to do so long as he wishes.
Three years since his brutal loss to Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, three years and a title match and title defense in a division Rat King made him look far too small to compete in, Chocolatito forces us to consider it was a styles mismatch more than an illadvised curtain call that put him bellyup in Carson, Calif. His matchmaking has been far carefuller since 2017, yes, but still he is beating larger and younger men in world-title matches, which a fraction of prizefighters in history can say.
Friday in the opening rounds of his match with Jiga, Chocolatito did what Papachenko wishes his son had done with a larger, younger man: jab with him, step inside his power, let years of mastery dictate the flow of his attack. Chocolatito is a greater prizefighter and man than Vasyl Lomachenko because of the choices he makes, because he cannot abide not-knowing the way Lomachenko can. It can never be said of Chocolatito “if only he’d started to attack earlier” because he attacks from every opening bell. If that means he loses a vicious KO-by rather than what Mexicans call a “polemical decision” then he suffers that fate ungladly but surely.
It’s why he inspires a disproportionate love in his American admirers, men who have very little in common with a 115-pound Nicaraguan but stalk him nevertheless on YouTube and Tokyo broadcasts at various hours of the night and early morning, knowing there’s a purity in who Chocolatito is – respectful of every opponent’s humanity before and after every fight as he is disrespectful of their volition during – that is so different from what swindles American prizefighting and its swindler promoters and swindler networks and, yes, swindler fighters, too, give them.
What doesn’t stop being surprising is how little malice Chocolatito brings to the act of striking other men about their heads and bodies. Maybe there’s viciousness in his heart masked adeptly by layers of professionalism and mastery. That is doubtful. Contempt, hatred, malice, viciousness – these things exact a tariff and a half on their bearers, sapping them, and does Chocolatito ever look tired?
Friday he went out, removed his much longer opponent’s advantages of length and speed in three rounds then began to strike Jiga with nigh every punch in boxing’s lexicon, breathing metronomically as he did, looking at all times unperturbed. When Chocolatito found he could no longer miss with his cross, after measuring Jiga for it early (inching his lead foot behind a blinding jab), he began to miss with it intentionally to cock his hips and shoulders for the lefthook to Jiga’s body. At super flyweight Chocolatito no longer carries the concusiveness he did at lower weights, but he still has more than enough to break opponents’ wills. Jiga looked little better than discouraged in his final 20 minutes with Chocolatito.
Soon after Chocolatito defended his title Gallo Estrada made a defense of his own against a considerably better opponent, countryman Carlos Cuadras, getting himself felled early, and finishing Cuadras, who’d never before been finished by anyone, not even semi-prime Chocolatito four years ago, in the 11th round of a fantastic scrap.
Estrada is special. Super flyweight would belong to him alone were it not for Chocolatito’s return in 2020.
After their matches Estrada, face badly swollen, and Chocolatito embraced, sat beside one another and conspired to have a rematch of their 2012 fight. Estrada’s strongest words were for neither Chocolatito nor Cuadras but for his promoter, and his desire to get paid well for a rematch with Chocolatito. Estrada got decisioned seven pounds and eight years ago by an ascendent master. Estrada would immediately rise to 112 pounds and not lose again in 10 fights until an extremely close decision with Sor Rungvisai, three months after Rat King sent Chocolatito to a California hospital. Estrada’s first fight with Sor Rungvisai was so good they had a rematch 14 months later. Estrada won that, close but unanimous.
Which brings us to Chocolatito-Gallo 2, a rematch that almost certainly will happen and just as certainly will be fabulous. Had they never fought before, odds should favor Estrada heavily; he has had better success against better fighters at super flyweight, he is the slightly larger man, he is today the quicker man of both foot and fist, and he is a masterful boxer. They did fight before, though, and Estrada is fully cognizant of just how great Chocolatito is. Too, Chocolatito’s style, volume-puncher, tends to unwind boxers like Estrada, no matter how good they be.
Chocolatito-Estrada 2 will be like only Chocolatito-Estrada 2. Both men are originals. No comparisons are needed.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
