Seniesa Estrada: Regardless of which weight class, I want to unify

There are a variety of boxing proverbs and adages particularly written to stop individuals from taking the combat recreation as an precise recreation.

George Foreman’s “boxing is the one sport you can not play” is just one of them. And no matter will not be coated by boxing’s written lore ought to be coated by widespread sense: you simply don’t take boxing as baby’s play.

Somebody forgot to impress this notion upon Seniesa Estrada in her pre-teen years as an aspiring fighter.

“That’s one thing I’ve been doing since I used to be a child, since I first began boxing,” mentioned Estrada, when requested about her uncommon footwork within the ring, a set of actions that will look strategically and technically unsound to most orthodox boxing observers.

“I bear in mind after I would swap stances and I might land a punch from a southpaw stance my dad would get mad at me and he would say ‘flip round again to right-handed, you’re not left-handed!.’

My dad began coaching me a couple of yr after I began boxing, and he didn’t actually know something about teaching or boxing. I imply, he was an enormous boxing fan and I might watch boxing with him rising up, however he didn’t know something about teaching, so he at all times thought that all the pieces ought to be concerning the fundamental fundamentals, like jab first after which the proper hand, on a regular basis. And I used to be so inventive as a child, with regards to boxing, I noticed so many issues in my thoughts and my head that I can do that will work, after which I might do them… and so they labored! After which I might at all times argue with him, like ‘why do I’ve to remain right-handed after I can flip left and I can confuse them and I can land this punch, if I see that there’s a gap!’

“And little by little I believe he began to appreciate that, OK, she has her personal little fashion and her personal methods of doing issues, perhaps I ought to simply permit her to maintain being inventive and expressing her fashion within the ring. That’s what he did, and he simply made certain he simply sharpened all the pieces up and attempt to excellent the fashion that I had.”

Estrada’s playful strategy to boxing could also be one of many secrets and techniques to her success, since her unpredictable conduct within the ring makes her a tough goal for her opponents. And it has labored fairly properly, since she now finds herself a two-division (strawweight and junior flyweight) titlist and ranked No. 1 by The Ring in each of these divisions.

However as unpredictable and wild as she seems to be within the ring, there is a component of management and focus that kicks in as quickly as she rushes out of the nook for each spherical.

“I believe that’s simply a part of my fashion. What units me aside from different feminine fighters is that I’m able to management the tempo and management the opposite individual’s fashion, and get them to do the issues I need them to do,” mentioned Estrada. “That’s one thing that you just simply don’t see in girls’s boxing, you simply see two ladies throwing punches, and when one throws a jab the opposite one simply reacts and throws all these punches. And also you type of get the identical factor each time you watch two females combat, however with me that’s how I stand out and the way I’m totally different, as a result of I’m able to management the tempo and actually break down my opponent’s fashion. I research all my opponents and I discover their strengths and I discover their weaknesses, as a result of going into the combat I need to management their weaknesses and have the ability to additionally do constructive issues with their strengths. Make their strengths their weaknesses.”

As elusive a goal as she has been within the ring, she discovered herself the goal of some powerful criticism for her previous couple of performances, however she feels that her most up-to-date win towards an skilled opponent was greater than sufficient to earn her a clear slate to work on for the foreseeable future.

“It was like we anticipated. We knew that Tenkai Tsunami was very powerful opponent that had by no means been stopped, an opponent who has fought at bantamweight,” mentioned Estrada, 29, about her Japanese foe, towards whom she picked up her second title belt. “So we knew that she could be the larger opponent bodily, so I simply tried to stay to my plan as greatest as I might to make my combat plan as straightforward as potential.”

Getting that title belt, nonetheless, doesn’t appear to indicate a dedication for her to remain in her new division. Given the shortage of high quality challenges compounded by the unwillingness of among the high fighters in both division to threat their belts, Estrada stays open to transferring in any path so long as one of the best fights are made.

“I believe that no matter combat we will get is the burden class I’ll combat at. If a champion at 105 needs to combat me, then I’ll go to 105, or if somebody needs to combat at 108 that’s the place I’ll go. After which throughout the subsequent yr I need to combat world champions at 112 too, as a result of I really feel like I can be a world champion at 112 as properly.”

Her foremost purpose, nonetheless, is the one purpose that each fighter who needs to be remembered as one of many nice ones expresses in each interview ever, earlier than and after grabbing the primary belt of their profession.

“No matter which weight class, I need to unify. Unifying each divisions can also be my purpose,” mentioned Estrada, at the moment 21-0 with 8 KOs to her credit score. “For this final combat, we wished to unify 105, however due to totally different conditions with the opponents that weren’t capable of combat. That’s why we went to 108. I nonetheless need to combat, I don’t need to maintain off and never combat as a result of I couldn’t combat at 105. With the ability to combat at these weight lessons actually helps me quite a bit, as a result of I’ve extra choices now for various fights.”

A number of facets of Estrada’s profession at this stage seem to bear a whole lot of similarities to the profession of a fighter who additionally discovered it tough to get champions within the ring for what would later be an extended and profitable profession stuffed with unification fights in a number of weights. The concept of champions both refusing to combat or pricing themselves out of title challenges is nothing new to Estrada, because it was a typical incidence within the early days of the profession of a person that now guides part of Estrada’s future as a fighter: Oscar de la Hoya.

Having Oscar, who like Estrada is an East Los Angeles product, on the helm as a promoter, along with his distinctive and private perspective into this conundrum, offers Estrada hope that she’s going to at some point have the ability to emulate her promoter’s success, despite the fact that she doesn’t count on it to be straightforward.

“It’s been actually arduous attempting to make these fights occur with different champions, as a result of a whole lot of these champions simply need to maintain on to their belts and so they don’t need to combat who they’re alleged to combat. They simply need to decide their very own opponents, and the organizations are permitting them to do it. The organizations are breaking their very own guidelines. However I believe that, as a result of girls’s boxing hasn’t been the place it’s at proper now and there’s by no means been somebody like me in these weight divisions who’re saying no. I’m demanding these fights, they should occur, we have to go by the principles, and these champions who had been alleged to combat me must combat me. So, now that I’m being vocal about it and saying it, I believe now we will make these fights occur. However these opponents, irrespective of how a lot cash we’re providing them, they’re nonetheless saying no. In order that’s one other tough factor, the place a few of them simply bid themselves out of it, or even when we’re providing them a very good quantity they’re simply say no and fighter who will not be even a compulsory and even ranked.”

There’s one achievement that doesn’t essentially require title belts as a result of it’s an accolade in and of itself, and it’s the inclusion within the legendary pound-for-pound rating. Estrada achieved that only recently, coming into The Ring’s high ten and threatening to climb steadily via the ranks in a crowded subject of extraordinary fighters.

Getting in was straightforward, however attending to the highest shall be significantly tougher. Nonetheless, Estrada is satisfied that she has the recipe.

“Simply proceed to win, and win in an effective way, and take the belts from champions,” she says, nonchalantly. “I believe that there’s a whole lot of the ladies who’ve world titles who’ve received them as vacant titles or (dealing with) opponents that aren’t ranked. I really feel like the way in which I’ve received my titles has been very legit, and with a whole lot of accomplishments on the data of my opponents and the champions that I’ve taken the belts from. So hopefully, if I proceed to only do this there’s no approach I shouldn’t be within the High 5 very quickly.”

A number of fights in the past, nonetheless, it could have appeared tough to rank Estrada among the many nice feminine fighters of her period. Preventing towards a late substitute in July 2020, Estrada discovered herself within the highlight after what on paper might have been considered one of her most memorable accomplishments as she disposed of Miranda Adkins in about seven seconds, the quickest stoppage ever in girls’s boxing.

However her foe’s background made it simpler for Estrada’s detractors to show the win into an ethical defeat. And rightly so, since Adkins (5-0 coming into the combat, however with all of her wins coming towards debutants with no expertise in any way) didn’t belong within the ring with Estrada – or anybody else, for that matter.

However Estrada refuses to take the blame for the fiasco. And rightly so, as properly.

“When somebody doesn’t belong within the ring with you, you must have the ability to take them out as quickly as potential,” she quips. “Figuring out that she was 5-0 with 5 KOs and I didn’t have any footage of her, I might prepare for the combat as if I used to be coaching to combat a world champion, due to her file. And I didn’t know what to anticipate, so the sport plan was to only go there and feint within the first spherical, which is what I did. I feinted earlier than I threw any punches. I wished to see her react.”

Dashing out of her nook as at all times, it didn’t take lengthy for Estrada to appreciate her foe was no match for her, which is a indisputable fact that falls squarely on her promoter’s fingers. (Golden Boy has already apologized repeatedly for the mismatch). And but, Estrada doesn’t see something on that combat video that everybody has already seen within the realm of males’s boxing – and with significantly much less controversy as properly.

“I see that there are a whole lot of knockouts like that in males’s boxing, however nobody actually says something, everyone praises them, like ‘oh, that was an awesome knockout!’, or ‘that man didn’t belong within the ring’ or no matter. However I believe as a result of it’s girls’s boxing, nobody is used to seeing that sort of knockout that was so vicious. I believe that’s what created extra of a backlash as a result of it simply seemed so brutal. It was a bit of unfair as a result of it was girls’s boxing.”

It didn’t take lengthy for Estrada to reverse that unhealthy picture. In her subsequent combat, she gave the most effective performances of her profession when she floored after which proceeded to outpoint long-time titlist Anabel Ortiz to carry the primary professional title belt of her profession.

However as memorable as that combat nonetheless is, it stays an in depth second in Estrada’s spotlight reel.

In November 2019, Estrada had considered one of her hardest challenges when she confronted Houston’s Marlen Esparza in a 10-round contests through which Esparza suffered a gory reduce that simply wouldn’t cease bleeding and which precipitated the combat to go to the scorecards within the ninth spherical, in an anticlimactic ending of what was shaping up as a terrific bout and is now a grudge match between them. By now, one might have hoped {that a} rematch would already be signed, however despite the fact that each fighters share the identical promotional outfit, the unhealthy blood that is still after that combat has made it harder for them to decide to a second combat.

Nonetheless, it’ll solely be a matter of time earlier than they do it once more.

“I believed that she wished to combat me once more as quickly as potential, as a result of that’s what she was saying after the final combat, however now it looks like she’s type of holding off on it and doesn’t need to do it but, or in any respect,” mentioned Estrada. “Each time it does occur I shall be prepared for it and prepared to do it, and I do know it is going to be even larger for the each of us when it occurs once more.”

A marketable matchup? Undoubtedly. Doable? Certainly.

A grudge match, maybe? Estrada will not be so certain.

“Oh no, undoubtedly not. I believe I obtained underneath her pores and skin greater than she obtained underneath mine, and it confirmed,” mentioned Estrada, laughing and responding to a current interview performed by The Ring through which Esparza claims that their rivalry shall be a foul blood trilogy for the ages. “So far as a take a look at, I believe Tenkai Tsunami was a harder take a look at than preventing Esparza. I believe the second time I combat Esparza shall be even simpler for me. Going into that combat I knew precisely how that combat was going to go. I knew that I used to be going to hit her to the physique and make her drained very quick, I do know that she couldn’t deal with the three-minute rounds, which is precisely what occurred. All the things in my thoughts performed out precisely the way in which I believed it was going to. So yeah, she is unquestionably not the largest take a look at, I might say. Tenkai Tsunami was extra of a take a look at for me. I needed to convey out a whole lot of myself, a whole lot of that grit and that keenness that confirmed that I actually wished to win towards a much bigger and heavier opponent, a champion like Tenkai Tsunami.”

Whether or not she is dealing with a Japanese tsunami or a Texan twister, and no matter what number of seconds, rounds or pints of blood it takes for her to get the W, Estrada seems dedicated to turning into the following face of girls’s boxing because of her skills but additionally to her stage of exercise and her seek for better challenges in each outing.

“I hope to get again within the ring very quickly. Undoubtedly combat one other time earlier than the yr ends, so I simply have to talk with Oscar and GBP concerning the subsequent steps for me. However I’m able to get again in there, and hopefully, if I can unify, then I wish to combat for one more world title at both weight class.”