Juan Francisco Estrada is targeting a fourth fight with Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez.
Estrada, 34, defends his WBC super-flyweight title against Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez at Phoenix’s Footprint Center on Friday evening, and for all that Rodriguez is recognised as his biggest threat in 2024, cannot resist the thought of fighting the great Gonzalez again.
It was his trilogy of fights – he lost the first and won the second and third – that did so much to build Estrada’s reputation, and the Mexican said: “People sometimes disrespect fighters like me when they say, ‘Gallo Estrada is too old now’. But I’m going to show on Saturday that it isn’t true and my career will keep progressing for a good while yet
“Lots of people say we’re too old now but if Chocolatito becomes a champion at bantamweight, a fourth fight would be great. I think to win any world title in any division at our ages would be nice and not just anyone could do that. If Chocolatito becomes a champion at bantamweight, we’ll go after him or any champion at that weight.”
Rodriguez, 24, is similarly moving back up in weight, having proved himself the world’s finest flyweight when in December he stopped Sunny Edwards to unify the WBO and IBF titles.
“Sometimes I think about how I’ve been out for a year and a half,” continued Estrada, “due to injuries and other unforeseen circumstances and that could make the [Naoya] Inoue fight a difficult one to make because he continues to move up the divisions and he obviously wants to build his career and break many records on the world stage and I’d much prefer to go up to bantam and face the champions in that division.
“We can have plans and make plans but we have to focus on the fight we have in front of us first. If they say they’re going to knock me out, beat me and then they’re going up a division to face Inoue that’s their business but let’s see on Saturday.
“If Jesse Rodríguez beats me it will be because he’s a better boxer, not because of anything else like my age, because they’ve been saying a lot that I’m old now, that I’m on my way out and on Saturday, I’m going to show that this isn’t the case.”
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