From the lowest to the highest. This is how you can summarize what Juan Francisco Estrada, better known as “El Gallo”, has done in the boxing world.
This is the story of one of the best super flyweights in the sport and one of the best Mexican fighters today.
The Ring magazine ranked “El Gallo” as the fifth best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, surpassing in points Saul Alvarez, whose defeat against Dmitry Bivol seemed to leave a lot of havoc.
But this glory did not come overnight and he had to go through several calamities to be at the top of Mexican boxing.
Who is El Gallo Estrada?
Juan Francisco Estrada was born in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora in 1989. Like any child, he played many sports at an early age, but it was boxing that this young man from the north of the country fell in love with.
At the age of seven, Estrada lost his mother to leukemia. At that age he was not prepared for such a hard blow and had to cope with such a big loss.
“At some point bad things have to happen, because not all life is happiness. You have to learn to cope with the pain,” he said in an interview for GenioLucasShow.
His family was supportive to the extent of overcoming the first steps in his life. On his way to school, he saw how a man was teaching his son to box, from there his love for the sport was born.
He began to explore his first steps in this world and it was the man in Sonora who showed Estrada the first techniques to introduce him to boxing.
After training with what he had on hand, when he grew up Juan Francisco showed up at a gym in his hometown, Puerto Peñasco, to take his first steps in the sport.
With attitude and a lot of heart, the managers of the Sonora gym saw something in Estrada that stood out from the rest.
So they prepared him in a special way and soon, in amateur championships, he managed to win three national titles. At just over 1.60 meters tall, El Gallito already stood out in the category.
The professional era
In 2008 he made his professional debut. After 18 fights, all wins, he suffered his first defeat. It was Juan Carlos Sánchez Jr. who gave Estrada his first setback. However, he avenged that loss by defeating him later on.
In 2012, El Gallo stepped into the ring to face Román “Chocolatito” González. It was a fight that left the audience with a great taste in their mouths. The Nicaraguan took the fight, but again, in the rematch, El Gallo won and took revenge.
In 2013, El Gallo Estrada defeated Brian Vilora to become the world flyweight champion. The fight in Macau, China, marked the success of what is now the best in this division.
In his last fight, in 2021, the controversy appeared. The fight against Roman Gonzalez ended with a victory for the Gallo, but the close cards and what was shown, leave room for a possible early rematch between these two elite flyweights.
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