by James Slater – A solid and intriguing heavyweight match-up will take place in Memphis on April 16th, as contenders Jason “Big Six” Estrada and Tony “The Tiger” Thompson will clash in a fight to be televised on ESPN 2’s Friday Night Fights series. This is the word according to Dan Rafael’s “Quick Hits” column over on ESPN.com.
Very much having the look of a 50-50 fight, fans will likely get a good, watchable bout here. Estrada is the younger man by a considerable nine-years at age 29, and he is coming off that better-than-expected (in the opinion of a good number of people anyway) showing against former cruiserweight champ Tomasz Adamek – the February fight being one the Providence, Rhode Island man felt very strongly he had won on points..
While southpaw Thompson of Washington D.C is coming off his impressive 9th-round TKO win over Chazz Witherspoon, a fight that took place back in December. Both guys remain hungry and determined, and both fighters will know that a loss in April will very possibly demote them to journeyman status.
Thompson, 33-2(21) is the bigger puncher of the two, yet he has no way near the amateur background under his belt that former Olympian Estrada has. Estrada is also arguably the quicker fighter of the two, yet he is also quite a bit smaller in both weight and height; Thompson being a lofty 6’5″ and approx 250-pounds, Estrada being 6.1″ and approx 237-pounds. Looking at all these stats, it really is quite tough to pick a winner from this one.
Thompson has already been in there with a reigning heavyweight world champion, losing in the 11th-round to Wladimir Klitschko in a poor showing Thompson partly blames on a problem he had with one of his legs back in July of 2008 – while Estrada, 16-3(4) awaits his first crack at pro world glory. Yet, as I’ve said, both guys still have plenty of ambition, or so it would seem anyway.
Very much having the look of a distance fight to me (Estrada’s chin, combined with his good defence has seen to it that no-one has come close to putting him down, while Thompson’s sole stoppage loss came against the mighty Klitschko), it could well be the quicker man who prevails. In my opinion the faster man is Estrada, and, as “Big Six” doesn’t figure to have any problems with Thompson’s southpaw stance (having beaten southpaws before, both amateur and pro) I pick him to win a close decision next month.