Superfly 3 results: Juan Francisco Estrada gets by Felipe Orucuta

Juan Francisco Estrada was the big favorite against Felipe Orucuta in tonight’s HBO Superfly 3 main event from Inglewood, California, and the 115-pound contender came out with a deserved victory, though not without some struggles along the way.

Orucuta (36-5, 30 KO) was game as they come, landing plenty of clean shots against Estrada (37-3, 25 KO) over the fight’s 12 rounds, but Estrada did close the show nicely, sweeping the last few rounds and separating himself from his opponent in the championship rounds.

Official scores were 117-111, 117-111, and 118-110, which may have been a bit wide, in all reality. BLH had it 116-112 for Estrada, and HBO’s Harold Lederman scored it 115-113 for Estrada.

In a way, it was a disappointing performance from Estrada, but he got the win, the fight was pretty entertaining as it wore on, and he’s still right in prime position to hopefully get a rematch with WBC titleholder Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, perhaps early next year.

For Orucuta, he put in a strong underdog performance and gave Estrada a better fight than many expected, but perhaps he was underestimated. True, he was stopped by Jose Cayetano a few fights ago, but this is a fighter who went 24 very close rounds with Omar Narvaez earlier in his career, too. He may have simply been overlooked, perhaps by both fans/media and Estrada himself.