Super flyweight Seniesa Estrada's lifelong plan finally panning out
Seniesa Estrada started boxing with her father, Joe, at the tender age of eight. Little did anyone else know at the time, however, that Seinesa had decided years before that first day of training that she'd one day become a professional fighter.
"I always knew that I would be a boxer," Estrada tells FOX Sports, days before her HBO bout against Selene Lopez at the Gennady Golovkin vs. Dominic Wade undercard in Inglewood on April 23.
"Even before I asked my dad if I could train boxing, before he took me to the gym when I was eight, I just watched boxing matches on TV. As soon as I saw a fight on TV, I was hooked. I loved watching it and I knew that I wanted to do that. I didn't even have a concept of what it meant to be a professional, but I knew I needed to do that."
Once Estrada got some gloves of her own, however, everything came together. "It just made sense," she said.
Proficiency also helped. Everything she was taught made its way from her ears to brain to her body with relative ease.
"I'm sure people who are great at basketball or who are musically-talented and get an instrument for the first time have similar feelings. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but boxing just made sense to me," she says.
"I was a little girl watching fights and in my head I'd critique what I was seeing, thinking, 'I wouldn't do that, I'd do this.' [laughs] I was a kid, I didn't know anything, but I felt like I could understand what was going on, the movement, and what was right and wrong to do, from the start."
#GGGWade L.A. press conference. Some tickets left. @oficialkenia @DiamondChick89 @SeniesaEstrada pic.twitter.com/V3fv3YIIBd
— David Avila (@AvilaBoxing) April 22, 2016
Realizing that she was built for boxing made Estrada work all the harder. So she trained, and fought. A lot.
Her father and coach brought her along in the amateur ranks, where she accumulated a lot of experience. Once she went pro in 2011, Estrada felt ready to hit the ground running.
Worthwhile fights were hard to come by, however. Estrada won her first two bouts in 2011, then had to sit out all of 2012 and 2013 without competing
Since 2014, however, Estrada has been able to get back on the horse, win fights and get some exciting momentum going for her career. She's now won three-straight since 2014, and is 5-0, overall.
As a woman in boxing, it was particularly challenging for Estrada to get others to believe in the plan she's had since kindergarten. "Finding opponents is probably the easiest part," the super flyweight explains.
"It isn't hard to find an opponent because I'm probably in the most stacked weight class in women's boxing. But getting promoters to believe in you, to put faith in you is a challenge."
Estrada appears to have overcome that hurdle now, heading into yet another HBO bout after being featured in many publications and at press conferences for the past year.
The boxing world is finally paying attention. In addition to Saturday's bout at the L.A. Forum, Estrada has another date in June set up as well. "I'm excited to be doing what I love, again. We got on HBO, are getting on HBO, again, and have the next fight planned," she says with excitement.
All this can be heady stuff for a young fighter. It could be easy to get ahead of oneself when you literally have multiple fights planned in advance. That's often the way it goes for boxing blue-chippers.
Though Estrada says that her team and management helps keep all the pressure off her shoulders so she can concentrate on sharpening her skills and being ready for fight nights. "My team takes care of those things so I can focus on the fight," she insists.
And, focused she seems to be. Estrada says she doesn't take any prospective win for granted, but she's certainly confident that she has the skills and savvy to beat Lopez come Saturday. "I just think I'm ready for this," she concludes.
"All my amateur fights gave me a lot of experience. I've seen a lot of styles, I've gotten a lot of different looks. And now, I've also gotten experience on a bigger stage, those lights and that pressure. I'm ready."
