One of the main criticisms of women's boxing from fans is that they compete in ten, two-minute rounds, unlike their male counterparts, while most male fights are 12, three-minute rounds. But, unfortunately, not many women have spoken about the issue for one reason or another. Until now.
Seniesa Estrada, DAZN's No. 6-ranked Women's Pound-for-Pound fighter, returns to the ring on Saturday when she defends the WBA Women's Minimumweight title in the co-main event against Maria Micheo Santizo from the AT&T Center in San Antonio, which can be seen worldwide on DAZN.
In the past, Estrada (21-0, 8 KOs) has taken part in some three-minute rounds, most notably her November 2019 over Marlen Esparza to win the interim WBA Women's Flyweight title. Unfortunately, that's been the exception and not the norm. It's not due to a lack of effort from Estrada. She's gone every which way to make every fight the same as the men, but Estrada continues to run into a wall by sanctioning bodies and her fellow fighters, which has led to some noticeable frustration.
"Well, that's something that I just don't understand," Estrada expressed to DAZN News.
"And I hope it changes. I want every one of my fights to be three-minute rounds. My Esparza fight was three-minute rounds. After that, every fight, every time we get a fight made, the first thing we do is tell Robert Diaz (Golden Boy Promotions official) we want three-minute rounds, ask the opponent, ask the organization and the commission if we can do it. So what I've learned about this is I know the WBC is totally against it. And they have their medical reasons as to why.
"But there's other organizations like the WBA, WBO sure the IBF too, where they'll allow us to do three-minute rounds only if our opponent agrees to it as well. But that's another issue because I wanted for example, my last fight with (Tenkai) Tsunami. Once the fight was made, the WBO said, ‘Okay, you guys can do three-minute rounds, as long as Tsunami agrees. And the California State Athletic Commission said we can also do three-minute rounds. So it was just up to Tsunami, and Tsunami didn't want to. She said no, straight out no. We tried to offer her more money. I tried to offer more money out of my own purse because that's how much I just want to fight three minutes. I think it'll benefit me in so many ways because two minutes is just not enough time. She decided not to do it.
"So that's the tough thing is just getting the opponents to do it. Believe it or not, there are a lot of girls who just don't want to do it around. And I know there are women out there who want to like top girls, you know, like Mikayla Mayer, I'm sure Clarissa Shields I think I've heard her say she wants to do it too and Amanda Serrano. It's not about the pay for me because even if I was even in the beginning of my career when I was fighting for $1,000 on these small shows, I still wanted to fight three-minute rounds. It's about the fighter in me. I want to fight three-minute rounds. I feel like there's no other way to do it than to fight three-minute rounds."
More often than not, women's fights produce better action than males. What could happen if the women got equal time inside the ring? There would likely be even more excitement which leads to more potential knockouts, which is what boxing fans want to see whether they are inside the venue or watching someone else. It leads Estrada to believe that it's sexist that women aren't treated on equal footing.
"I do (find it sexist)," Estrada wholeheartedly admits. "I know they tried to make their excuses as far as like having these medical reasons, but now I mean, that's just all BS. I think it was just a way back then when women's boxing wasn't really where it was today, and they just wanted to keep women at two minutes and make their fights hurry up and get it over with (laughs). But now it's growing so much, and it's becoming so big, and I think that it has to just officially change already."
What will it take for the status quo to change in women's boxing? To Estrada, it's pretty simple.
"I think it's just going to take enough of us to just all come together and just demand it," Estrada said. "We haven't done that yet. I think there's still so many women who just don't want to do too many rounds. And that's it's not going to change like that. We all have to just have a certain amount of us who want it and agree to it and fight for it. But that's not really happening."