Seniesa Estrada: “I know wherever I go I will bring a lot more attention because of my fighting style. And I think Top Rank is the best place to do it.”

Seniesa Estrada: “I know wherever I go I will bring a lot more attention because of my fighting style. And I think Top Rank is the best place to do it.”

In many ways, a new chapter begins this weekend in Las Vegas for Seniesa Estrada. The reigning WBA minimumweight and WBO light-flyweight champion returns on Saturday night from contractual problems which resulted in a lengthy absence from the ring. But the extended hiatus is now a thing of the past, and Estrada makes that return with a new promotional outfit at the helm. Her signature was very much in demand, even Eddie Hearn and Matchroom wanted to sign her, but the 30-year-old settled with Top Rank. Over Zoom, Estrada told me why she went with the Bob Arum stable and ignored the advances from Hearn:

“As well as it being a better offer financially, I also thought ESPN was the perfect platform to be on. It just made so much sense and everything came together it was a no-brainer. I have always watched how they moved Mikaela Mayer’s career, everything they put into her, Top Rank have done an amazing job with her career and I always recognised that.”

Mayer is the only other female fighter to be aligned with Top Rank and the former unified world super-featherweight champion was a big influence on her decision:

“I spoke with Mikaela at the Katie Taylor Amanda Serrano fight in New York and that was when I was in the middle of my contract dispute with Golden Boy. Mikaela gave me a lot of good advice and that helped me a lot in making my decision and knowing that I had made the right decision in asking for more money from Golden Boy which everybody knows was the problem. It just made me feel a lot better knowing that me and Mikaela were on the right track about it. It made me more comfortable about my decision to part ways with Golden Boy, we just mutually agreed to part ways because we couldn’t agree on terms of how much I wanted. Top Rank will be able to put a lot more time into me, and I know wherever I go I will bring a lot more attention because of my fighting style. And I think Top Rank is the best place to do it.”

The contractual difficulties with her former team led Estrada to be out of action since her last outing last December against Maria Micheo Santizo. It has been a frustrating time for the unbeaten two-weight champion who was looking to build on the incredible 2021 that she just had. The initial frustration has now given way to a more reflective stance and the realisation that everything is for a reason:

“Last year I had a great year, winning two world titles back-to-back in two different weight divisions and I finished it defeating an undefeated opponent. But with not being active this year I felt I was missing out and it was frustrating because every other female fighter in and around my weight division was active and that was frustrating because I know I am the best around these weight divisions. But now I have seen this amazing year women’s boxing has had but now I feel I haven’t missed out on anything. I am not even in the prime of my career yet and I am coming back at such a perfect time.”

A WBA minimumweight title defence against Jazmin Villarino is first up for Estrada in Las Vegas this weekend. But while there is no looking past the present, Estrada still has one eye on the future, and unifying next year:

“After this fight, our plans are to have my first unification fight in February or March,” words from a fighter intent on making up for lost time.

The journey into boxing began at an early age. A family ritual, watching boxing on the family television set got Estrada hooked when her eyes first got a glimpse at the sport of boxing. But even in her tender years watching wasn’t enough for Estrada. But the initial reluctance of her father was her first fight. He needed convincing, her fists won him over:

“I was about 8 when I first started boxing and before that, I used to watch boxing with my dad. He was a huge boxing fan, and Roberto Duran was his favourite fighter. We were always watching boxing, I fell in love with it from the very first fight I watched. At the time we were not watching any female fighters on TV, it was just men, I didn’t even know that women boxed. When I asked my dad if I could box he was against it. Within my first two weeks of training, he put me in with a boy because he thought I would get beat up and cry. But I ended up beating up the boy and making him cry. From then my dad saw my potential and was 100% supportive of me.”

Without a female role model in those early days, Estrada looked elsewhere for inspiration, but the new generation of female fighters has an abundance of female fighters to aspire to. The importance of inspiring the new wave of talent isn’t lost on Estrada:

“I looked up to Sugar Ray Leonard and Roy Jones Jr but it’s different than having female fighters to look up to, so I am just glad that I am now that inspiration for younger girls watching now. They have it a lot easier than I did and other girls like Katie Taylor, Claressa Shields and Mikaela when they were coming through. And all the younger girls will have it a lot easier because of us.”

The latest bout of inactivity isn’t anything new for Estrada. Even in the early embryonic days of her pro career, Estrada had long periods without a fight. After two fights in 2011, it was in 2014 before she had her third professional fight. Further little pockets of inactivity have plagued her for much of her career. Estrada needed resilience and patience:

“I had over 100 amateur fights but going professional was so different, I didn’t know I would be so inactive and that female boxing was so non-existent. There were no promoters signing women or women fighting on TV, we weren’t even fighting on the big cards. It was very difficult, I would have one fight every 8 months, so it was a very slow start at the beginning of my career. But I just kept going, kept winning and building my record until I got the offer to sign with Golden Boy.”

But her latest new beginning carries real hope that all the frustration is now a thing of the past. Unbeaten in twenty-two fights, a crowd-pleasing style, and with a new promotional powerhouse behind her, Estrada now only needs to look forward and not back. It will only be one fight in 2022, but 2023 promises plenty. “The perfect year would be undisputed at 105 and then start unifying at light-flyweight,” Estrada told me. All the inactivity hasn’t dampened the ambitions of a fighter who could be in the right place at the right time to take her career to another stratosphere.