The Big Question: Who wins the Juan Francisco Estrada vs Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez rematch?

Last week’s Big Question was on the Fury-Joshua negotiations, and whether or not you’re still expecting that fight to be next for the heavyweight champs.

55 percent said yes, which is more than the 45 percent who said no, but I get the feeling if we’d asked the question via poll a month ago, the split would’ve been a lot bigger in the favor of “yes.”

Anyway, another week has passed since then and we do not have Fury-Joshua official, but the latest word is the contracts are just waiting to be signed by various parties, and that’s from both Bob Arum and Eddie Hearn.

This week, we’ll keep it very simple. We’ve got a big fight coming this Saturday, one a lot of us have wanted to see for a long time, and it just kept not happening, but now it’s finally (almost) here.

Saturday on DAZN (8 pm ET), Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez will hook it up once again, over nine years since their first meeting, two weight divisions below where they’ll fight this weekend.

Estrada (41-3, 28 KO) will be defending the WBC junior bantamweight title, while Gonzalez (50-2, 41 KO) will put his WBA belt on the line in the unification bout. When they first met at 108 pounds, Gonzalez beat Estrada by decision in Los Angeles.

The Dallas rematch might seem at first glance like it’s coming too late, but it really isn’t. Again, these are both legit titleholders right now, both still fight at a very high level, and their styles figure to make for excellent, truly high-level boxing with some good excitement, as both men are also warriors when they need to be.

The 30-year-old Estrada is three years younger than Gonzalez, and has won five straight since a decision loss to Srisaket Sor Rungvisai in 2018, including a rematch win over Rungvisai in 2019. Gonzalez has won four in a row since back-to-back losses to Rungvisai in 2017, and his Feb. 2020 smashing of Kal Yafai to take the WBA belt proved he’s not just able to beat up nothing opponents these days, he can still go.

Who’s got the edge here? Styles make fights and all that, and neither of them are faced with a big bruiser like Rungvisai, who can be hell for anyone, and has been for both of these fighters. These two are matched closer as mirrors than that sort of style clash, though they certainly don’t have the exact same approach in the ring.

We’ll have our staff predictions on Friday, of course, but who ya got on Saturday?