Goodbye, flyweight division.

After fighting most of his meaningful bouts at 112 pounds, including winning two world titles, Juan Francisco Estrada embarks on a journey toward a new weight class.

There are many lucrative bouts to be made but they will have to wait until 2017.

Estrada will face Raymond Tabugon Saturday night at the Estadio Francisco Leon Garcia in Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico.

The 10-round bout will be Estrada’s first meaningful bout as a junior bantamweight and will air on beIN Sports en Espanol, beginning at 11 p.m. ET/ 8 p.m. PT.

Estrada (33-2, 24 knockouts) will fight before a partisan crowd as he resides in nearby Hermosillo. He made headlines a few weeks ago when he vacated his WBA and WBO flyweight titles, citing it was a struggle to get down to 112 pounds.

That may be the case but there are many lucrative fights at 115 pounds. There has been talk over the last few years of a potential rematch with former RING flyweight champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, who, last month, won his fourth world title belt in as many weight classes.

There are other lucrative bouts against WBO titleholder Naoya Inoue of Japan, Carlos Cuadras, who recently lost to Gonzalez, and IBF beltholder Jerwin Ancajas of the Philippines.

Estrada has the backing of a major promoter in Fernando Beltran, who runs Zanfer Promotions.

Tabugon (18-5-1, 8 KOs) hails from the same hometown of Manny Pacquiao (General Santos City) but has lost two of his last three bouts. In his most recent bout on July 29, Tabugon was stopped by Makazole Tete in the fifth round.

Opening the beIN Sports Espanol broadcast is a 10-round junior featherweight bout between hard-hitting Emanuel Navarrete (15-1, 13 KOs) and Martin Casillas (15-8-1, 9 KOs). Both resides in the Mexico City area.

In an intriguing six-round featherweight bout, Noe Robles (10-0, 9 KOs) will square off against Israel Camacho (8-1-1, 5 KOs).

The fight card will air on Azteca throughout Mexico.

Francisco A. Salazar has written for RingTV since October of 2013 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (California) Star newspaper, BoxingScene.com and Knockout Nation. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing.

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