Golden Boy's Poster Girl Marlen Esparza Retains Flyweight Titles in Spirited Clash With Eva Guzman

 

With the sudden but not surprising departure of Seniesa Estrada from the Golden Boy roster following an often frustrating four and a half-year tenure, Marlen Esparza is still a stablemate to a handful of female fighters like Arely Mucino, Anabel Ortiz, Sulem Urbina, and Yokasta Valle. But Esparza, having signed with Golden Boy in December 2016, no longer has to struggle against her sworn enemy for pride of place as Oscar De La Hoya’s favored promotional poster girl.  

A stellar 2021 for Estrada emboldened her to request a renegotiation of her contract, and the ongoing financial squabble between Seniesa and Oscar resulted in her sitting out the first seven months of this year, and counting. She was supposed to have returned to defend her WBA world minimumweight title this past Saturday in a rematch against the aforementioned Anabel Ortiz in the same Fort Worth arena in which ‘Superbad’ dethroned the former champion last March.

Obviously, this fight was scratched from the lineup when Seniesa jumped ship from Golden Boy to eventually climb aboard Bob Arum’s luxury cruise line. The vacant spot on the card was presented to Esparza, who will put her newly unified WBC, WBA, and Ring magazine flyweight belts on the line.

Estrada, who may not fight again until November according to a Top Rank press release, couldn’t help but have one last laugh at her arch rival's expense on her way out of Golden Boy’s door. “I won’t be fighting August 6^th in Texas,” she tweeted. “But you can still go and watch Marlen Esparza play patty-cake with her opponent.”

Estrada’s acerbic verbal jab notwithstanding, a seemingly credible and dangerous foe was selected for Marlen Esparza in Venezuelan southpaw Eva Guzman (19-1-1, 11KOs), the WBA’s top-ranked contender. Her record is somewhat deceiving though, as on just five previous occasions has Guzman run up against opponents who boasted winning records, a pair of whom she subsequently recycled through with mixed results.

After dueling to a split draw against future world title challenger Deborah Rengifo (6-1-0 at the time) in 2015, Guzman lost a unanimous decision in their return bout seven months down the line, accounting for the lone blemishes on Guzman’s ledger coming into the Esparza fight. In 2017, Guzman handed then-unbeaten Esmailen Colina (1-0-2) her first defeat, followed by another three months later for good measure. Colina has since lost twice more and hasn’t had her hand raised since her pro debut five years ago.

Guzman claimed a secondary world title in 2018 when she edged out a majority decision over Yaditza Perez (9-12-1) for the vacant IBA flyweight strap. An impressive performance against Isabel Millan (29-6-1) last June earned Guzman the WBA interim title and, along with it, a mandatory shot at the world champion. At the time, this was Naoko Fujioka, and had been for four years until she relinquished the belt to Marlen Esparza in their unification fight back in April.            

Saturday’s tale of the tape unfurled a lengthy list of advantages for the defending champion. Besides a weight discrepancy of nearly three whole pounds, Esparza had three and a half inches in reach on Guzman in addition to four and a half inches in height with her adversary measuring in at a mere four foot eleven. The feisty, petite Venezuelan was hoping to upset Golden Boy’s apple cart by proving that good things come in small packages.

Guzman put her penchant for mixing it up on display from the opening bell, although Esparza was able to bob and weave out of harm’s way and make beneficial use of her reach advantage by sticking her left jab in her challenger’s face, creating openings for straight rights and combinations, while also sneaking in uppercuts to the body once she had broken past her opponent’s barrier.   

Effective counterpunching became a key component to Guzman’s strategy, turning Esparza’s sometimes reckless aggression against her by peppering the champion with crisp pot shots to the head and midsection whenever Marlen would carelessly lower her guard or throw lazy jabs while attempting to barrel forward. Concerning Esparza, conditioning and stamina have often been legitimate question marks and it was becoming evident in round four that the momentum was beginning to swing ever so slightly in favor of Guzman, who was acquitting herself extremely well given how steep this step up in competition was for her. 

The later rounds saw Esparza flip the script on Guzman by deliberately allowing the Venezuelan warrior to dictate the pace, which was still accelerating at a good clip, then catching her with check hooks and body blows on the way in. Though many of her punches were coming up short, no pun intended, Guzman showed no signs whatsoever of letting up on her relentless attacks.

Esparza forced Guzman to stumble backwards and initiate a clinch courtesy of walking right into the path of a stiff left jab midway through the ninth frame. With the awareness that she needed a knockout to win the fight, Guzman came out swinging for the tenth and final round and got Esparza’s attention on two occasions, once with a nice right hook and the other by virtue of a particularly well-placed left to the body. 

In the final analysis, Esparza outworked the sprightly Guzman by scores of 99-91 and 98-92 (x2) to secure her thirteenth professional victory and retain her trio of title belts.

Esparza has laid out her future battle plan, audacious as it may be. The first bit of business is to clean out the flyweight division. This requires showdowns with newly-crowned WBO champion Gabriela Celeste Alaniz and longtime IBF titleholder Leonela Paola Yudica, both of whom are undefeated.

Assuming she can run the 112-pound championship gauntlet, Esparza ultimately envisions putting her undisputed title up for grabs against Seniesa Estrada in a grudge match that Marlen believes will be “bigger than Taylor/Serrano.”