The legendary conqueror of three divisions, a near-pound veteran from Mexico, Juan Francisco Estrada (42-3, 28 KOs) is no longer formally the world champion in the second flyweight (up to 52.2 kg), as he refused the WBA Super belt due to his unwillingness to fight with WBA World title holder American Joshua Franco (18-1-2, 8 KOs).
Estrada still retains the WBC Franchise title, which the rest of the boxing organization and most observers consider not a championship belt, but a status.
Estrada’s decision was dictated by the desire to hold, instead of fighting Franco, a financially profitable third fight with the no less legendary ex-champion from Nicaragua Roman Gonzalez (51-3, 41 KOs) – so far they have a draw.
Estrada’s coach Alfredo Caballero claims that “we have already vacated the WBA Super title and stayed with the WBC Franchise. Yes, we have abandoned the WBA belt, but as far as I understand, the organization has not yet made this public. There will definitely not be a fight with Franco.”
Also, the WBA is trying to figure out the cruiserweight (up to 90.7 kg) – both local champions have not fought for more than 12 months. Therefore, the organization finally guessed to force them to meet in a face-to-face fight. Otherwise, they promise to take away the titles.
The “Super Champion” in this weight representing France, a native of Armenia Arsen Gulamiryan (26-0, 18 KOs) entered the ring for the last time in 2019 (!) year. He was supposed to fight his mandatory contender, who has not boxed since 2020, Russian Alexei Egorov (11-0, 7 KOs), but the fight fell off twice in a row – first due to the champion’s covid, then due to sanctions imposed on representatives of the Russian Federation because of the criminal invasion of their army into the territory of independent Ukraine.
The organization decided that Yegorov would fight the winner of this battle only if at that time it was possible to stop the war. Otherwise, the WBA will determine another mandatory challenger.
Interestingly, the holder of the WBA World belt, Belgian Riyad Merhi (30-1, 25 KOs), suffered his only defeat in his career precisely from Gulamiryan – in 2018 he lost ahead of schedule. Fought for the title of interim WBA champion.
In January, the Belgian signed a co-promotion contract with a Russian company RCC, was supposed to fight in March with Olympic champion Evgeny Tishchenko. Due to sanctions, the show in Yekaterinburg did not take place. Then it was rumored that Merhi could have an “almost unification” fight: there is a date and an opponent.
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