Marlen Esparza doesn’t see the need to abandon the flyweight division anytime soon—if ever at all.

The fighting pride of Houston, Texas has remained put at the same weight for her young pro career coming up on five full years. Esparza looks to further establish her legacy with the first defense of her WBC flyweight title, which she defends versus Mexico’s Anabel Ortiz, a former two-time strawweight titlist aiming to become a two-division champ.

Becoming a multi-division titlist is not a conversation that Esparza (10-1, 1KO) has entertained.

“I’m a true 112-pounder,” Esparza told BoxingScene.com. “This is my weight. Until I conquer every champion in this division, there’s no reason for me to jump around in weight. This is where I’m at and I’m not going anywhere until all the belts come home.”

Esparza won an Olympic Bronze medal as a flyweight during the 2012 London Games, remaining in the amateurs for another four-plus years before turning pro in March 2017 where she weighed 110 pounds for her first career win.

All but one fight has come as a true lightweight—a six-round win over Shelly Barnett this past March. Esparza accepted at bantamweight for the sake of joining longtime amateur teammate and current pound-for-pound queen Claressa Shields on an independent pay-per-view event.

The win paved the way for Esparza’s greatest pro achievement to date, a ten-round win over Ibeth Zamora to claim the WBC flyweight belt. The win came this past June 19 in El Paso, Texas, with Esparza staying in her home state for her first title defense which takes place Saturday evening on DAZN from AT&T Center in San Antonio.

The show also features longtime rival Seniesa Estrada (21-0, 8KOs), who defeated Esparza in their November 2019 WBA “interim” flyweight title fight. Estrada has since dropped back down in weight, winning titles at strawweight and junior flyweight, defending her strawweight title—which she won in a ten-round decision over Ortiz this past March—versus unbeaten Maria Santizo.

Estrada is part of a growing list of multi-division titlists in women’s boxing, though Esparza aspires to join another growing trend of reigning undisputed champions. The latter feat has been established by six male boxers during the four-belt era (WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO), though with the common theme of abandoning said reigns either by moving up in weight or vacating at least one title.

Four female fighters have accomplished the feat, including Shields at two separate weights (middleweight and junior middleweight).

Cecilia Braekhus was the first woman to claim undisputed championship status, doing so midway through a welterweight title reign that saw her register 25 successful title defenses over an 11-plus year span. She fully unified the division midway through her title reign following a September 2014 shutout win over Ivana Habazin, going on to make another 10 defenses as undisputed champ before losing all of the belts to Jessica McCaskill last August.

McCaskill remains undisputed welterweight champion, defending in a repeat win over Braekhus earlier this March and in a seventh-round knockout of Kandi Wyatt on December 4 in Las Vegas. Her run comes after having won her first major title at junior welterweight, followed by a title unification win and a subsequent unified title defense before moving up in weight after the pandemic.

Katie Taylor (20-0, 6KOs) was the last fighter to hang a loss on McCaskill, doing so in the first defense of her WBA lightweight title in December 2017. The Irish superstar has since earned undisputed championship status, having defeated four reigning titlists to organically establish her still active reign. Taylor has defended at least one lightweight title 12 times, five of which have come as undisputed champion.

That is the type of legacy that Esparza looks to bring to the flyweight division, which has only featured one female unified titlist in history—Susi Kentikan and Melissa McMorrow.

Kentikan (36-2, 17KOs)—an Armenian based out of Hamburg, Germany—spent the bulk of her career at flyweight, where she has held all but the WBC title and enjoyed two separate title reigns interrupted by a May 2012 loss to McMorrow, Kentikan returned to the championship stage in 2013, going on to add a second belt to her reign in 2015 before calling it a career in July 2016.

Among the list of fighters that Kentikan has defeated is the legendary Naoko Fujioka, who currently holds the WBA flyweight title. Argentina’s Leonela Paola Yudica holds the IBF title, while her countrywoman Debora Anahi Lopez serves as WBO champ.

Needless to say, the time is long overdue for a definitive flyweight queen to emerge.

“It’s very important,” acknowledges Esparza. “I understand why other girls jump up and down in weight. We have to do what we have to do when these opportunities come. For me, 112 is always my weight class."

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox