Seniesa Estrada: “I am excited to do all the things I have wanted to do outside of boxing.” 

Seniesa Estrada: “I am excited to do all the things I have wanted to do outside of boxing.”   

Seniesa Estrada was undefeated and undisputed when she surprisingly announced her retirement in 2024. Estrada was only 32 when she made that retirement call last October. There was apparently more to come, but in many ways, the final bell had been coming. The body and mind had given enough. Maybe too much. Estrada had been fighting many things over the last few years. Only those close to her knew the truth.

Seven months on, I caught up with the former undisputed minimumweight over Zoom. Estrada seems to be in a good place. A better place.

“Physically, I feel so much better,” Estrada relayed to me. “I have gone through a whole year without feeling the pain from all the different injuries I had. It feels good to wake up every morning and go to bed every night with no pain, no soreness, or no exhaustion. And mentally, I have been feeling the best I have ever felt. It just feels good to enjoy life and relax and not put my mind and body through what I had been doing for the past twenty-three years. So it’s been great.”

That retirement announcement was followed by an emotional, and at times gut-wrenching, interview with Crystina Poncher for Top Rank. There were tears and plenty of them, as Estrada opened up on the reasons why she walked away from the sport when she was at the peak of her career. “I knew that mentally I just couldn’t handle it anymore,” Estrada told Poncher. “It was 20 years of depression and anxiety, more than happiness. I just can’t do this anymore.”

It was a difficult watch. More than uncomfortable at times. A fighter who had been battling many demons for many years. You felt for her as Estrada relayed the brutality of her sport and what she had been going through.

“It was very difficult doing it,” Estrada says in reflection on that interview. “I didn’t rewatch it. But doing it was very difficult, and the only person I wanted to sit down and discuss those things with was Crystina, because we are friends. I have spoken to her previously about certain things. So, to let it all out and talk about the things I had been going through was definitely a relief. It felt really good. I had wanted to retire for maybe about four years because of the way I was feeling, not just physically but mentally as well. At that point, it was more mental, but it became more physical, and then both at the same time. To go through all that, and to hide it for so long and pretend everything was ok, was so hard to do for so many years. So, to finally make the decision to retire was a relief, for sure.”

By opening up about her struggles and more, many other fighters have now opened up to her. “I believe it is widespread. It’s so interesting that after the interview, when I announced my retirement, so many fighters reached out to me and said that they were going through or had been through the same thing. It was unbelievable to me, and it was fighters at every level. World champions, big names, and up-and-coming fighters, and I was so surprised. I thought, wait a minute, how do we not know this about each other? Why isn’t this talked about? I found that so interesting, but it shouldn’t be this way. This is the toughest sport in the world, and it’s more mental than physical. If you want to be a world champion or get to a certain level, there are so many things you have to shut off in your mind. Even if you are going through something in your personal life leading up to a fight, it all has to be blocked out in order to do your job in the ring. I have done that so many times, and I know other fighters have. So it is something that is very common.”

“I do question it,” Estrada said when I asked her if she thought the mental turmoil and physical pain from her sport were all worth it. “But it was worth it. Totally. I pushed through because I knew there were certain goals I wanted to accomplish. If I had given up or retired before I had accomplished those things, I wouldn’t be satisfied, and I wouldn’t be happy. I would have had a lot of regrets.”

There are clips of Estrada working out in her old environment, but there are no immediate thoughts of returning to the sport that gave and took so much. “I love working out,” Estrada says. “Sometimes I’ll go to the gym and hit the bag or do mitts with my trainer. But it’s just for fun. He’s not trying to correct me or working on a game plan. It’s just me working out. I don’t have to push my body to the extreme anymore. I don’t miss it, but there might be a day when I think I do miss it, and I’ll be in a much better space mentally. I can’t really say if that is something that will happen. But if it does, women’s boxing will be in a much better place, especially with all the things Jake Paul is doing for women’s boxing, signing all these big names and paying what they are worth.”

Estrada turned professional in 2011 and remained unbeaten in twenty-six fights. A long career that still perhaps had a little more to give, until Estrada realised she had given enough. But her boxing life brought many highs, but one moment stands out. The night she beat Yokasta Valle. “Going undisputed was definitely the main highlight because that was something I wanted to achieve before I retired. My goal was to be undisputed in multiple weight classes, but I couldn’t do it because I just couldn’t keep going. But just having that one undisputed on my record is a great accomplishment.”

Life has now moved on for Seniesa Estrada. She seems happy and content with where she is right now. Life now has a different pace. “I spent the first year of retirement, literally, doing nothing,” Estrada told me. “I was just resting. A lot of people don’t understand how hard it is. I started boxing when I was 8 years old, so I have been boxing for twenty-three years. There is no off-season in boxing, so I was constantly training and constantly fighting. So once I retired, all of a sudden, I didn’t have to wake up to go to the gym. I am so used to having structure and being on a schedule every single day. But when I didn’t have that, it was kind of difficult. What do I do now? I didn’t have to be at the gym at a certain time. I didn’t have to be as disciplined. I didn’t have to eat certain things. Going through those changes was very interesting. I could wake up at any time; I was literally just resting. It felt so good, and the time went by so quickly. I did some travelling, which was so much fun. I got to do so many things. I also stayed busy with some commentary for Top Rank and ESPN, and I will be doing the third Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano fight on Netflix in July.”

There is plenty more to come. “I am writing a book,” Estrada added. “It’s such a long process. I have a ghostwriter because I wouldn’t be able to do the whole structure on my own. I am also setting up meetings to get the book to the screen. I have all the time now, so I am hoping to get the book finished in the next six months. I am super-excited about it. It’s life from even before I was born, starting with my father’s life and his addictions. All the issues that he went through growing up. It then goes to when I was born, and when I first started boxing, and so many details of the business of boxing. The book will go into everything.”

Estrada has long held ambitions of being an actor. A long-time passion that is progressing quite nicely. “It’s going very good,” Estrada says of her fledgling acting career. “I have been going to acting school for almost three years now. I have some things in the works with that, and I will be shooting at the end of the year. I am excited to do all the things I have wanted to do outside of boxing.”    

It’s maybe that last line that says everything. Free from the shackles of her sport, Estrada is thriving in her new beginning. Despite the many successes within her sport, it came with a darkness. But Seniesa Estrada now has light. Many fighters suffer in retirement, you sense, she won’t be one of them.

Photo Credit: Top Rank