A Preview of Superfly 2 – Boxing News
By Rich “Lite It Up” Lopez
The Superfly 2 card was officially announced on Tuesday in Los Angeles and is one of the most anticipated cards for the New Year. This is a follow up from last year’s Superfly card back in September, which was a great success and matched the best 115 pounders against each other. The card once again will be held at the Forum in Inglewood, California on Saturday February 24th. HBO will televise this card as part of their Boxing After Dark series. Expect another great event and once again we expect to see fireworks.
The main event features WBC Super Flyweight Champion and Ring Magazine’s #10 pound for pound Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, 44-4-1, 39 KO’s, of Si Sa Ket, Thailand Vs WBC’s #1 rated Super Flyweight and former WBO Flyweight Champion Juan Francisco “El Gallo” Estrada, 36-2-25 KO’s, of Sonora, Mexico. Rungvisai is looking to solidify his status that he is the best 115 pounder in the division. He won the championship last year by dethroning Nicaragua’s Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez by majority decision on the Golovkin Vs Jacobs undercard. Gonzalez was considered the #1 pound for pound fighter at that time. It was an action packed fight and a fight of the year candidate. Many felt Gonzalez did enough to win the fight, which prompted a rematch on the Superfly card in September of last year as the headliner.
The aggressive and super strong Thai followed this up by knocking out Gonzalez in the 4th round and proving he belongs on top of the division. Instead of taking an easier opponent, he’s right back into it and taking on another tough challenger in Juan Francisco Estrada. Estrada is one of the top fighters from Mexico and he’s a very underrated counter puncher with power. We last saw Estrada also on the Superfly card last year in September Vs Carlos “Principe” Cuadras in a close competitive fight in which El Gallo won by unanimous decision.
Estrada has not lost a fight since 2012 which was at the hands of Chocolatito in a close decision. Since then he has wins against top fighters such as Brian Viloria, Giovani Segura, Milan Melindo and Hernan Marquez. A win against the Thai could put him in the top pound for pound rankings along with countryman Canelo Alvarez. This is a matchup between the puncher (Rungvisai) vs the counter puncher (Estrada) and we should expect fireworks. I would love to see the winner fight the #1 guy in the division Naoye “Monster” Inoue.
The co-feature showcases former WBC Champion Carlos “Principe” Cuadras, 36-2-1-27 KO’s, of Mexico City vs McWilliams Arroyo, 16-3-14 KO’s, of Fajardo, Puerto Rico. The 29 year old Cuadras is looking to put himself back in the win column after suffering a close defeat against Estrada last year. His only other defeat was against Chocolatito back in 2016, but he also gave Gonzalez a tough fight. Cuadras is hoping for a rematch with Juan Francisco Estrada or perhaps maybe a fight with Rungvisai, whoever the winner may be. Cuadras will need to first get past Arroyo in order to land one of those fights. Arroyo is a former 2008 Olympian who has challenged for the Flyweight titles on 2 occasions but came up short. He is looking for a victory to put himself as a top contender in the Super Flyweight division and will be coming off a 10 month layoff.
The non-televised card will also feature former WBC/IBF Light Flyweight and former WBO Flyweight Champion Brian “Hawaiian Punch” Viloria, 38-5-23 KO’s, of Waipahu, Hawaii vs Artem Dalakian, 15-0-11 KO’s, of Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. The fight will be for the vacant WBA World Flyweight Title which was vacated by Japan’s Kazuto Ioka, who suddenly retired at the beginning of this year. Viloria is looking to become a world champion again, and has won 2 fights last year since his last lost to Chocolatito back in 2015. Viloria is now 37 years old and it remains to be seen what he has left. For Dalakian, this will be his American debut and has the youth on his side, but yet he is taking his biggest test up to date. It should be an interesting fight and Viloria is never in a bad fight.
In writing this there is a rumor but nothing is confirmed that a fight between Donnie Nietes Vs Juan Carlos Reveco might be added to the card. The fans will be treated to a great night of boxing and it’s nice to see boxers in the smaller weight divisions getting their recognition.
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