I flinched when Seniesa Estrada took a shot. When she twisted to evade a jab, I discovered myself twisting, too. When she plowed a left hook into the jaw of her Argentine challenger, Leonela Yúdica, I hoped such aggression would result in a knockout.
As Estrada defended her World Boxing Affiliation and World Boxing Council mini flyweight titles on Friday in entrance of almost 2,500 followers on the Palms On line casino Resort in Las Vegas, I watched her struggle from the stands for the primary time in 18 years.
Within the early 2000s, once I was a metropolis reporter for The Los Angeles Instances, I’d been impressed by the lengthy checklist of champions from East L.A. Oscar De La Hoya was the best of them, and I looked for the subsequent teenage boy who might comply with his path out of the powerful, impoverished, predominantly Latino neighborhood.
As an alternative, I discovered Estrada and spent the subsequent three years chronicling her quest to show herself within the rugged, male-dominated world of junior boxing. The end result was “The Girl” — a five-part, front-page collection that drew widespread consideration.
Estrada’s story was about greater than boxing. It was a glimpse into what it was wish to be younger and Latina, rising up amid the sweetness and hassle of East L.A. It was additionally a strong father-daughter story. Estrada was guided in life and boxing by her dad, Joe, who was making an attempt to place his troubles with medicine, crime and gangs behind him. By shepherding her, Joe might present he was able to doing good. By preventing, Seniesa helped him keep straight.
The Estradas shared a dream that appeared inconceivable in an period when feminine fighters existed on the far margins of the game. The collection was revealed seven years earlier than ladies’s boxing was launched on the London Olympics in 2012 and effectively earlier than Ronda Rousey turned a sensation in blended martial arts, opening our eyes to the star energy of feminine fighters.
Regardless of the percentages, Estrada and her father vowed she would sooner or later be a world champion and headline marquee fights in boxing scorching spots like Las Vegas.
She is 31 now, a sinewy 5 ft 2 inches, and nonetheless stuffed with the sharp wit and self-assurance she has all the time possessed. Remarkably, maybe miraculously, almost the whole lot she and her father imagined has come true.
With the cash she has earned in boxing, Estrada has been capable of purchase a condominium in downtown Los Angeles, a cushty house in a suburb and new vehicles for each of her dad and mom. Her bouts at the moment are bringing in paydays within the center six figures. For the Yudica struggle, Estrada headlined a card that included eight matches between males.
Getting into final week’s bout, Estrada, recognized in boxing circles by the identify Superbad, had fought 24 instances since turning skilled in 2011. She had received every time, 9 by knockout.
“I simply all the time knew it will occur like this,” she mentioned, reflecting on her journey. “I’d all the time give it some thought, dream about it, speak about it. And now all these issues I needed are taking place.”
Estrada’s profession has had its twists. An injured foot stored her out of the 2012 Olympics. Round that point, she stop boxing for a 12 months or so, took neighborhood faculty courses and labored a string of low-paying jobs, together with as a server at an ice cream store.
Then boxing drew her again. Her drive to take the ladies’s struggle sport to new heights, opening doorways for future generations of ladies and ladies, was a mission price sticking with. Three extra years, she advised me final week, and she or he’ll be able to retire.
Nonetheless, she famous boxing’s grinding toll. The ugly enterprise facet that few see. The years she spent unable to get fights, coaching intensely however with no actual competitors.
“It’s been a curler coaster,” she mentioned, including: “Proper now I’m simply attending to the height of my profession, lastly making good cash with an amazing promoter. I’m nonetheless wanting to be taught and get higher and be nice. I’m nonetheless captivated with it, essentially the most passionate I’ve ever been. But when any person had been to ask, ‘Do you like it?’ No, I don’t like it. Not like I used to.”
I perceive the sensation.
After “The Lady” was revealed, I interviewed at the least a dozen former champions for one more boxing function, this one about an aging timekeeper and his recollections. I’ll always remember my disappointment, interviewing middle-aged and older fighters I had admired, as they stammered and slurred their phrases. I described one, Bobby Chacon, as being “so shellshocked he should continually write notes to himself, reminders so he doesn’t overlook the place he was, the place he needs to be, or who needs to be round him.”
Quickly, advances in medical analysis caught my consideration, significantly new understanding in regards to the results of repeated blows to the top, which may result in persistent traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., a progressive mind illness.
I discovered it tougher to separate my love for the game from its prices. I’d as soon as watched avidly and sparred for enjoyable. As of late, I don’t spar anymore, and once I watch a struggle, I really feel such a gnawing feeling of unease, fearing for the fighters and their well-being, that I can normally absorb just a few rounds.
Whereas observing Estrada’s profession unfold from afar, I fearful about her. Every time I questioned if she ought to stop, I reminded myself that she doesn’t struggle with the take-it-on-the-chin type of boxers like Chacon. She has fast ft and a catlike nimbleness, which permit her to slide, deflect and evade assault.
When she fought, I discovered a technique to stroll again my worries. She appeared ever in management, all the time on the assault, able to successful with precision and accuracy or by bloodying opponents into submission. Her 2020 bout against Miranda Adkins lasted seven seconds. Estrada landed seven blows, 4 to the top. Adkins crumpled within the ring.
I requested her about that struggle and whether or not she worries in regards to the perils of her sport. Estrada answered shortly. “As a fighter, that’s like the very last thing to consider,” she mentioned. “As a result of if you’re in there enthusiastic about getting caught by punches and getting damage, you’re not going to deal with what you must do to win. So I by no means actually take into consideration the hazard.”
However I used to be caught in an all-too-familiar contradiction: concurrently revolted and enthralled by boxing. I like to consider myself as a peaceable one who cares deeply about others. However how peaceable was I, actually?
Final week in Las Vegas, I used to be as soon as once more entangled.
“Kurt, you might be household,” Estrada had jogged my memory after the weigh-in the day earlier than the bout. I felt satisfaction, loads of goose bumps — and aching doubt. Why, I questioned, did I need to see her dole out pummeling, painful punishment to Yúdica?
Quickly the opening bell rang. Estrada gained the early benefit. She wove out and in like a buzzing bumblebee in her crimson trunks and prime. She switched stances, tossed jabs and uppercuts and roundhouse hooks.
The Argentine by no means backed down. She used her lengthy arms to penetrate Estrada’s protection. I grimaced and flinched as Estrada absorbed heavy pictures that twisted her neck and tore in opposition to her face, inflicting the flesh round her left eye to swell and bruise.
I couldn’t bear in mind seeing her in this sort of hassle. Simply then, Estrada responded as she had all these years in the past — by commencing an assault. Whap-whop, whap-whop, whap-whop. Her fists flew, and the group roared.
The ultimate spherical resulted in a storm of punches, however there can be no knockout. Estrada awaited the judges’ determination below strobe lights within the darkened, noisy theater, her father ft away. Then the announcer’s voice cracked by way of the air.
“Your winner, by unanimous determination, and nonetheless W.B.C. and W.B.A. champion of the world, Seniesa (Superbad) Estrada!”
A tear ran down my cheek. I considered how fortunate I had been to have seen her goals come true. For her, for her father, I forged my doubts about boxing apart. For them, I all the time will.
