On Saturday, Sept. 8, HBO broadcast its third boxing card dominated by super flyweights. Here are the fighters who owned Superfly 3. HBO struck gold in 2017 with an all super flyweight card headlined by Roman Gonzalez and Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. One year later, they featured super flyweights for the third time in a fight card billed Superfly 3. Its predecessors contained much more action, but there were some impressive performances throughout the night.
Kazuto Ioka and McWilliams Arroyo got the night started in a fun but one-sided bout. Ioka had the most dominant performance of the night. Arroyo gave a courageous performance, but he was no match for the former three-division world champion.
Ioka invested punches to Arroyo?s body early in the bout. Precision is the word that best describes Ioka?s performance. He was a step ahead of Arroyo throughout the night. Ioka subtly avoided Arroyo?s attacks with quick, slight head movement. Arroyo?s punches appeared to miss Ioka?s head by inches because of Ioka?s sly defensive skills. Ioka put on a clinic and proved that he?s a new force in the super flyweight division.
The second bout of the night featured former three-division champion Donnie Nietes against Aston Palicte. Nietes moved up in weight to attempt to add the WBO super flyweight belt to his collection. Unfortunately, he didn?t accomplish his task.
Palicte possessed all of the physical advantages. At 5-foot-7, Palicte had four inches on Nietes. He?s also nine years younger than Nietes, and this was his greatest advantage.
Palicte won several rounds, but only because Nietes took them off. Nietes paced out his punch output. Nietes controlled the early action with carefully placed right crosses that connected on Palicte.
At 36 years old, Nietes?s age showed. He wasn?t as active as previous performances and slowed down toward the end. Palicte impressed in Rounds 7 and 8 but was outboxed by Nietes for the majority of the bout.
When the scores were read, the result was a disappointing draw. According to CompuBox, Nietes landed 70 more punches than Palicte. Nietes threw 307 fewer punches than Palicte but still landed more punches. This proves he was more efficient and effective with his punches. He should have won the fight. His big mistake was taking rounds off.
Two of the three judges were fooled by an optical illusion. One scored the bout 114-114, and another had it 116-112 for Palicte. They scored the fight based on who threw the most punches instead of who landed the most. That was a serious mistake and an error in judgment. The numbers don?t lie and reveal that Nietes won this fight. It?s sad that he will have another draw on his record.
Juan Francisco Estrada fought Felipe Orucuta in the headline matchup. Estrada also starred in HBO?s Superfly 2 card in February, but he lost a close majority decision to Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. Estrada?s fortunes were better this time around.
Orucuta gave Estrada a harder time than expected, but Estrada?s conditioning did the trick. Orucuta used his size advantage to push Estrada around the ring at times, but Estrada threw his faster hands more often than Orucuta.
CompuBox stats show that Estrada threw 222 more punches than Orucuta and landed 152 more. Estrada won a unanimous decision, but he didn?t have the dramatic performance that he displayed seven months prior against Sor Rungvisai. Estrada lost to Rungvisai, but he was more impressive in defeat than he was against Orucuta in victory.
HBO?s Superfly 3 matchups were competitive, but not nearly as exciting as the Superfly cards that came before. The one element missing this time around was Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. He?s an outlier in the super flyweight division, and his presence was missed. There may be a Superfly 4 event, but it needs Sor Rungvisai to excite the fans. Superly 3 was competitive but forgettable.
