Juan Francisco Estrada is one step closer to a rematch…

The 30-year-old Mexican professional boxer and WBC junior flyweight world titleholder has done his part to get a rematch with Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, who beat him in 2012, by defeating Carlos Cuadras in an 11th-round TKO Friday night at the TV Azteca Studio in Mexico City.

But it didn’t come easy, as Estrada had to recover from an early knockdown before stopping Cuadras late in the fight.

Estrada-Cuadras was itself a rematch of a 2017 bout that saw Estrada defeat Cuadras by a single point on all three of the judges’ cards in a 12-round fight, with the difference being a knockdown by Estrada in the 10th round.

On Friday, Estrada (40-3, 28 KOs) hit the deck in the third round when he was clipped by a right uppercut-left hook combination from Cuadras (40-4, 27 KOs). But Estrada was able to get up and control the next several rounds with precise punching, accuracy and power.

Cuadras had his moments, but he simply couldn’t match the power of Estrada’s thumping shots to the body. At times you could see Estrada hurting Cuadras with attacks to the body. To his credit, though, Cuadras mustered up enough offense to take Round 10 on the scorecards.

But at the beginning of the 11th, a three-punch combination by Estrada sent Cuadras crumbling to the floor. While it was obvious that he was on his last legs, Cuadras was able to continue and attempted to trade punches with Estrada again, and Estrada responded by hitting Cuadras again with a straight right hand that knocked Cuadras down for the second time in the round. It looked as if the fight was over, but somehow Cuadras got back to his feet once more, and showed incredible courage in letting his hands go and exchanging blows with Estrada.

Cuadras landed a few of his punches, but they simply lacked the steam and velocity in response to what was coming back his way. Finally, a right hand that snapped Cuadras’ head back forced the referee to stopped the fight at 2:22 of Round 11.

And with that, Estrada looks forward to a long-awaited rematch with Gonzalez.