Seniesa Estrada vs. Yokasta Valle unification fight eyed for March 29
Seniesa Estrada, the Ring magazine female strawweight champion, and Yokasta Valle may square off on March 29 in a unification fight. Boxingscene’s Keith Idec was the first to report the news.
The 10-round bout will reportedly take place at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, California and will precede the main event bout between junior lightweight contenders Oscar Valdez and Liam Wilson.
Both fights will take place on a Top Rank card and will air live on an ESPN platform.
The winner of the fight will not only be the Ring magazine champion, but will become the undisputed champion at 105 pounds. Estrada holds the WBC and WBA world title belts and Valle owns the IBF and WBO world title belts.
The fight between Estrada and Valle is a clash between female fighters ranked in the Ring Magazine Pound for Pound rankings. Estrada and Valle are rated No. 5 and 9, respectively.
Estrada (25-0, 9 knockouts), who resides in East Los Angeles, California, made a successful defense of her unified world title belts in her last fight on July 28, winning a hard-fought unanimous decision over Argentina’s Leonela Yudica..
In her previous fight on March 25, Estrada scored a one-sided decision victory over Tina Rupprecht, who entered the fight as the WBC world titleholder.
Weeks after the win over Yudica, on September 12, Estrada had surgery on her right hand to repair ligament damage and a procedure to minimize a cyst on her right index finger. Estrada claimed she had reaggravated an injury to her right hand during the second round of Yudica fight, preventing her from it and changing her game plan for the fight.
The 31-year-old is currently trained by Dean Santos.
Valle (30-2, 9 KOs), who resides in San Jose, Costa Rica after being born in Nicaragua, last fought on November 4, defeating Mexico’s Anabel Ortiz by unanimous decision. The win over Ortiz marked Valle’s fourth defense of her IBF and WBO world title belts.
The 31-year-old moved up in weight to face Evelin Bermudez in November 2022, winning by majority decision to win the IBF and WBO world junior flyweight titles.
Valle is unbeaten since a unanimous decision loss to Rupprecht in June 2018.
The clash between Valdez and Wilson, both of whom recently lost to WBO world junior lightweight titleholder Emanuel Navarrete, could produce fireworks between two fighters who throw a high volume of punches.
Valdez (31-2, 23 KOs) is currently rated No. 7 by The Ring at 130 pounds. Wilson (13-2, 7 KOs) of Australia has won his last two fights since his knockout loss to Navarrete.
Francisco A. Salazar has written for The Ring since October 2013 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (California) Star newspaper. He can be reached at [email protected]