By Bart Barry-
Saturday in a DAZN mainevent that went-off 90 minutes too late at American Airlines Center, in a match for The Ring super flyweight title, Mexican “El Gallo” Juan Francisco Estrada split-decisioned Nicaraguan legend Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez. Few were the decisive rounds. Fewer still were the decisive punches. It was a wonderful prizefight. Its ferocity and competitiveness raised both men above themselves.
We saw what we looked for. It was that sort of match. The punches were exchanged in a blinding fury, each man catching stiff as he pitched. Whomever you watched is whomever you thought won.
It’s like that often with scorekeeping but more so Saturday. Over and again, unless you fix your eyes on the neutral plane between fighters and follow only what punches penetrate that plane, you naturally favor one man in every exchange. In an event like Saturday’s, when punches get thrown an average of one every second – with plenty of seconds that feature zero, and therefore many seconds that have simultaneous punching – it is impossible to keep an accurate tally of punches with one set of eyes, much less marry each punch’s effect to its tally.
It’s why scoring is necessarily subjective and knockouts are how titles must be taken. That’s why those who rise on their hindlegs about scoring are such bores.
I did not score the fight because I was not ringside. Pacquiao-Bradley 1 taught me scoring a match on television is a fool’s errand. Camera angles, replay selection and three incessant voices imposing their groupthink on you and your subconscious make the televised experience wholly unreliable, even if you’re wide awake and sober at midnight. Who you cheered for Saturday is who you watched, and whomever you watched is who you believe won.
I picked El Gallo. I watched myself watching Gallo and knew there was nothing objective about my view. I knew this in part because I absentmindedly put on DAZN’s English-language broadcast, ever inferior to its Spanish alternative, and found myself disagreeing with the commentary the entire match. They must have been watching Chocolatito – certainly they were openly cheering for him (at times it had the silly feel of late-HBO’s rooting for Bernard Hopkins in his every “historic” moment). Gallo would counter Chocolatito and move him backwards, and we’d hear how subtle Chocolatito’s movements were. One guy crowed “Chocolatito is better than ever!”
That’s asinine. Roman Gonzalez is 5-3 (3 KOs, 1 KO-by) as a super flyweight. As a minimumweight, junior flyweight and flyweight, Gonzalez was 45-0 (38 KOs). Chocolatito is many things today – including, with Saturday’s passing of Marvelous Marvin Hagler, one of my two most favorite living prizefighters (Israel Vazquez is the other) – but he sure as hell is not better than ever. He would tell you that. He knows that at his prime weight and with his prime power and reflexes he’d not be leaving things open to iffy scoring.
Chocolatito is not a great 115-pound prizefighter. He knows this because, unlike nearly every one of his generational peers, he knows the feeling of being an alltime great prizefighter.
Both men awoke Sunday proud of their effort. Both men fought better than they thought they could. Chocolatito looked outgunned in the opening round and about a weightclass too small. Gallo Estrada is a fantastic technician, quite possibly one of Mexico’s 25 greatest prizefighters, alltime, but he is not Chocolatito. That is how Estrada won only by a very close decision Saturday despite fighting best he was able. There was nothing more he might have done.
Much as we’ve made of what Srisaket Sor Rungvisai did Chocolatito, we mustn’t forget Estrada spent twentysomething more minutes ordering from Rat King’s tasting menu. Gallo is fresher than Chocolatito but not fresh.
There’s a bit of straining and squinting to appraisals of Saturday’s event. The best super flyweight in the world fought Friday in Bang Phun, Thailand. Saturday was an extraordinary competition and payday for two of our beloved sport’s most deserving men, but fair is fair: More than 2,000 punches got thrown, yet neither man stumbled, bled or lost consciousness. If we didn’t appreciate prime Chocolatito fully as we should we shouldn’t cheapen him telling ourselves he or Gallo or Saturday’s fight were more than they are.
How much do I love Chocolatito? I felt intense relief when Saturday’s decision went Estrada’s way. For I spent part of DAZN’s undercard watching Rat King make a BDSM dungeon of Workpoint Studio. What Sor Rungvisai put on Ekkawit Songnui (50-8-1) Friday was savage as it was nonchalant. He hurt Songnui like it’s what the man wanted him to do. After nine minutes Songnui used his safe word.
I was there 3 1/2 years ago when Rat King made StubHub Center pindrop silent (forget not: nearly all of us were there to see Chocolatito avenge his only loss). I remember keenly the vicarious devastation I felt that night. I do not wish to revisit it.
Estrada’s decision victory primes perfectly a rubber match with Chocolatito. That is best for both men. But if someone must be martyred to Rat King, let it be El Gallo.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
